volar

Forms

volar (first-person singular present vuelo, first-person singular preterite volé, past participle volado)^[1] Berceo, Alfonso de Palencia and other medieval writers spell the verb with v-, while Juan Ruiz, Guillén de Segovia and Nebrija write bolar.^[2] Old Spanish texts also have the forms uolar, buelan, bolauan and uolando.^[3][4]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin volō (“to fly”).^[2][5][6][1] The verb is found in every period of Spanish and in all the Romance languages.^[2] Wiktionary names volear as its doublet.^[1]

The same Latin verb is Portuguese voar, Galician voar, Catalan volar, French voler and Italian volare.^[7][8][1] Romanian lacks the simple verb: its word for “to fly” is zbura, from a compound of the verb with ex-.^[2] The French verb also took the falconry senses “to set a hawk at a bird” and “to catch it”, which led to “to steal”.^[7]

De Vaan reconstructs Proto-Italic *gʷelaje- and connects it, not with certainty, with Proto-Indo-European *gʷelh₁- (“to raise the arm, throw”), the root of Ancient Greek βάλλω (bállō, “to throw”); the step from “raise the arm” to “fly” would have happened in speaking of birds.^[9] Walde and Hofmann rejected the comparison, as he notes.^[9]

The stressed forms have the diphthong ⟨ue⟩ from Latin short /o/ (⟨vuelo⟩, ⟨vuelas⟩, ⟨vuelan⟩), which Autoridades describes as the verb's irregularity.^[10][6]

Earliest recorded meaning

The earliest hit in the CDH is the Fazienda de Ultra Mar (c. 1200, known from a 13th-century copy), in the description of the seraphim: „con las dues volavan” “with two [wings] they flew”.^[4][3] The Semejanza del mundo (c. 1223), in a manuscript of its own time, speaks of “the things that fly in the air, such as birds”: „las cosas que y buelan asi como son las abes”.^[4] Corominas dates the verb from Berceo (1220–1250).^[2][5]

Semantic evolution

Already in the 13th century the verb meant both flying and going in great haste: Berceo uses it for walking or travelling, and Alfonso X's prose has “to go fast”, “to pass at a great height” and “to flutter about”.^[11][12] Alfonso X's Moamín uses it of birds whose wings are weak and fly feebly.^[12]

In the Quijote Cervantes has the verb for blowing up a wall with a mine, and the falconry phrase volar la ribera, which Cejador explains as going from bank to bank to flush the birds.^[13] The Quijote and Vélez de Guevara also use the transitive volar for “to make disappear”, and the Martín Fierro of Argentina uses it for the wind carrying something off.^[2] The Academy's 1817 edition has the hunting sense “to make a bird rise” and the figurative “to anger, irritate” (aquella pregunta me voló).^[14] Salvá adds the use with gunpowder and, in parts of South America, “to snatch someone's hat and run”.^[15]

The Americas have developed many uses of their own: “to fly into a rage” (volarse in Mexico, El Salvador, Cuba, Venezuela and northwestern Argentina), “to steal” (Mexico, Bolivia and Central America), “to dismiss from a job” and, in Ecuador and Peru, “to be high on a drug”.^[16][6] In Mexico volar also meant “to court someone for fun”, and in Central America volar with a noun names any sustained action, as volar lengua “to chatter”.^[17]

Timeline

• c. 1200 – the Fazienda de Ultra Mar has volavan, in a copy of the 13th century.^[4]
• c. 1223 – the Semejanza del mundo has buelan, in a manuscript of its own time.^[4]
• 1220–1250 – Berceo: Si queremos con Christo a los Cielos volar;^[18] volador is dated from the same years.^[4][5]
• c. 1250 – first record of the noun volada “flight”, in the Libro de Alexandre.^[2][5]
• c. 1335 – first record of vuelo.^[5]
• 1492 – Nebrija's Latin–Spanish dictionary writes the verb bolar.^[18]
• 1571 – the first record from the Americas, in Mexico City, of a beam that buela sobre la pared “projects over the wall”.^[19]
• 1739 – the Diccionario de Autoridades records the senses “to rise in the air”, “to go in great haste” and “to disappear”.^[10]
• 1817 – the Academy adds the falconry sense and the figurative “to anger”.^[14]
• 19th century – voladura “blowing up” enters the Academy's dictionary.^[2][5]

Meanings

Verb

1. (intransitive) To fly: to move through the air on wings.^[6][1]
2. (intransitive) To fly in an aircraft, to travel by air: Mañana volamos a Quito.^[6][1]
3. (intransitive, also pronominal) Of a thing: to rise into the air and be carried along for a time: Con el viento se volaron los papeles.^[6]
4. (intransitive) To go or move in great haste: Al oír la noticia, voló a casa.^[6]
5. (intransitive) Of a person or thing: to vanish quickly and unexpectedly.^[6][1]
6. (intransitive, architecture) To project beyond the face of a building.^[6][1]
7. (intransitive) Of something thrown hard: to go through the air.^[6]
8. (intransitive) To do things very quickly; of news, to spread fast; of time, to pass very quickly: ¡Cómo vuelan las horas!^[6]
9. (intransitive, Ecuador and Peru) To be under the effect of a hallucinogenic drug.^[6]
10. (intransitive, Nicaragua) To deceive, to make someone believe something false.^[6]
11. (transitive) To blow up, to send something flying, especially with explosives: Los mineros volaron la roca.^[6][1]
12. (transitive) To irritate, anger or provoke someone.^[6][1]
13. (transitive, Mexico, Bolivia, Central America; colloquial) To steal.^[16]

Word family

• volada
• voladizo
• volador
• volante
• volear
• vuelo
• revolar
• voladero
• voladura
• revolotear
• volandero

Related words

• volantín
• volapié
• volátil
• volatería
• Latin volō
• Portuguese voar
• French voler

Usage notes

Volar is irregular like contar: vuelo, vuelas, vuelan, but volamos, volé.^[10][1] The phrase como volar stresses that something is impossible, often to turn down a proposal.^[6][13] En volandas “through the air, flying” comes from the gerund volando.^[2]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 5, 836
3. ^ a b Diccionario del Español Medieval electrónico (DEMel), data publication 2026 (CC BY-SA), Universität Rostock, p. s.v. volar
4. ^ a b c d e f Real Academia Española (2013–), Corpus del Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (CDH), version 3.1, https://apps.rae.es/CNDHE, p. s.v. volar
5. ^ a b c d e f Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. volar
6. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p Real Academia Española; Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2014–), Diccionario de la lengua española, 23rd ed., online version 23.8, https://dle.rae.es, p. s.v. volar
7. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 9431
8. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. 7260
9. ^ a b de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
10. ^ a b c Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 6, 514
11. ^ Lanchetas, Rufino (1900), Gramática y vocabulario de las obras de Gonzalo de Berceo, Madrid: Sucesores de Rivadeneyra, p. 800
12. ^ a b Kasten, Lloyd A.; Nitti, John J.; Gago Jover, Francisco (2002–), Diccionario de la prosa castellana del Rey Alfonso X, New York: Hispanic Seminary of Medieval Studies (electronic edition 2024), p. s.v. volar
13. ^ a b Cejador y Frauca, Julio (1905–1906), La lengua de Cervantes: gramática y diccionario de la lengua castellana en El ingenioso hidalgo don Quijote de la Mancha, 2 vols., Madrid: Jaime Ratés, p. 1165
14. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1817), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 5th ed., Madrid: Imprenta Real, p. 899
15. ^ Salvá, Vicente (1846), Nuevo diccionario de la lengua castellana, París: Librería de Don Vicente Salvá, p. 1123
16. ^ a b Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2010), Diccionario de americanismos, Lima: Santillana; online at https://www.asale.org/damer, p. s.v. volar
17. ^ Malaret, Augusto (1946), Diccionario de americanismos, 3rd ed., Buenos Aires: Emecé, p. 819
18. ^ a b Lleal, Coloma (dir.), DICCA-XV: Diccionario del castellano del siglo XV en la Corona de Aragón, Barcelona: Universitat de Barcelona, Grup d'Estudis d'Història de la Llengua (GHCL), https://ghcl.ub.edu/diccaxv, p. s.v. volar
19. ^ Boyd-Bowman, Peter (2003), Léxico hispanoamericano 1493–1993, ed. Ray Harris-Northall and John J. Nitti, New York: Hispanic Seminary of Medieval Studies, p. s.v. volar