volley

Etymology

It is borrowed from Middle French volee (“flight”),^[2][3][4] now volée,^[5][6][7] recorded in Old French from the 12th century,^[6][8] from Vulgar Latin *volāta (“flight”),^[9][2][10] a noun use of the feminine past participle of Latin volō (“to fly”).^{[9][2][10][3]} The OED compares Old Occitan volada, Spanish volada and Italian volata.^[6] The Latin verb is also the source of volatile.^[9][2] The English ending is the suffix -y.^[2][7]

Earliest recorded meaning

The firing of a number of guns at once: 1573.^[2][4][6]

Semantic evolution

In Anglo-Norman, from 1267, volee meant a flight or a flock of birds.^[11] English took the word for a shower of shot,^[12][13] and by the 1590s used it for a shower of arrows or stones (1590) and for an outpouring of words or oaths (1590, in Nashe's writings), sighs or cheers (1589).^[6][2] For a short time it also meant a flight of birds (1601) or a crowd (1595–1693).^[6] The phrase at the volley, of a ball in flight, and figuratively at random, dates from the 16th century.^[10] Weekley takes the tennis use, of hitting the ball in its flight, as the original one,^[14] and Barnhart records the flight of the ball before it touches the ground from 1596;^[2] the stroke itself, a return before the ball bounces, is dated by Hoad to the 19th century and by Etymonline to 1851.^[10][8] The verb, first "to utter rapidly" (1591),^[6][4][2] was used for firing volleys in Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra and for hitting the ball before it bounces from 1819.^[6][8] Volleyball is an American coinage of 1896.^[2] In Warwickshire, to volley the bells was to clang a peal of them.^[15]

Timeline

• 1573 – the firing of many guns at once.^[2][4][6]
• 1589 – a burst of sighs, cheers or the like.^[6]
• 1590 – a shower of missiles; an outpouring of words.^[6][2]
• 1591 – verb, to utter rapidly.^[6][4]
• 1596 – in tennis, the flight of the ball before it touches the ground.^[2]
• before 1616 – verb, to fire a volley, in Shakespeare.^[6]
• 1819 – verb, to hit the ball before it bounces.^[6][8]
• 1851 – noun, a return of the ball before it bounces.^[8]
• 1896 – volleyball.^[2]

Meanings

Noun

1. The firing of a number of weapons at the same moment; a salvo.^[16][4][5]
2. The bullets, arrows or other missiles fired in this way.^[16][5][4]
3. A burst of many things at once, such as questions, oaths or protests: a volley of complaints.^[16][5][6]
4. In tennis, soccer and other games, a stroke or kick of the ball before it touches the ground.^[16][5][4]

Verb

1. To fire, or be fired, in a volley.^[5][4][6]
2. To utter in rapid succession: The reporters volleyed questions at the coach.^[4][6]
3. To hit or kick a ball before it touches the ground.^[5][16][6]

Word family

• volleyer
• volleyball
• drop volley
• half volley

Related words

• volatile
• volant

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
3. ^ a b Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
5. ^ a b c d e f g The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
6. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ a b Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
8. ^ a b c d e Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
9. ^ a b c Ayto, John (2005), Word Origins: The Secret Histories of English Words from A to Z, 2nd ed., London: A & C Black
10. ^ a b c d Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
11. ^ Anglo-Norman Dictionary (AND2), Aberystwyth University, anglo-norman.net (2nd ed., 2005–)
12. ^ Skeat, Walter W. (1911), A Concise Etymological Dictionary of the English Language, new ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
13. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
14. ^ Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
15. ^ Wright, Joseph, ed. (1898–1905), The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols., Oxford: Henry Frowde; via EDD Online 4.0, University of Innsbruck (CC BY 4.0)
16. ^ a b c d e Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins