vuelo

Forms

vuelo m (plural vuelos)^[1] Old Spanish texts write the word buelo as well as vuelo: Juan Manuel's Libro de la caza and López de Ayala's book of falconry of 1386 have buelo, buelos, and Nebrija's vocabulary of about 1495 enters it as Buelo.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is a deverbal noun from Spanish volar (“to fly”), formed with the noun-forming suffix -o as in adelanto from adelantar or gasto from gastar.^[4][5][6][7] The diphthong ⟨ue⟩ is taken from the stressed forms of the verb.^[4]

The verb volar is recorded from the first half of the 13th century and continues Latin volō (“to fly”).^[7][6] De Vaan reconstructs *gʷela-je/o- and traces it to Proto-Indo-European *gʷelh₁- (“to raise the arm, throw”), with a shift from “lifting the arm” to the flapping of a bird's wings.^[8][1] The Latin verb is continued in nearly all the Romance languages, as Portuguese voar, Galician voar, Asturian volar and Catalan volar.^[6][9][10]

Earliest recorded meaning

The CDH's earliest hit is in Juan Manuel's El conde Lucanor (1325–1335, in a copy of about 1400), addressed to a bird: en el vuestro vuelo avedes tan grant ligereza, que vos non enbarga el viento “in your flight you have such swiftness that the wind does not hinder you”.^[2] Corominas dates the word about 1335.^[7] The other early records are in books on hawking, by Juan Manuel and by López de Ayala (1386), where it is the flight of a falcon or of its quarry.^[2][11]

Semantic evolution

Autoridades defined the word as the action of flying and the distance flown at one go, and also used it figuratively for the soaring of the mind or of a style.^[12] By 1817 the Academy's dictionary had added the flight feathers of a wing, the part of a building that projects into the air (as of a roof or balcony), the fullness of a garment where it hangs free of the body, the stage machinery that carried actors through the air, and a trained hawk; it also had the phrases a vuelo or al vuelo “quickly” and coger al vuelo “to get something in passing”.^[13][14] The figurative al vuelo appears in the Americas by 1574, in Santo Domingo.^[15]

Today the first senses are still the act of flying and the distance a bird covers without landing, but the word is now above all the journey of an aircraft between two airports.^[16][17] The Academy also records the woodland of a mountain and, in some traditional divisions of property, the right to the trees separate from the right to the land.^[16] In Cuba, Ecuador and Chile vuelo is a lace frill, and in Cuba Moliner also records it as a woman's slip.^[18][17]

Timeline

• 1325–1335 – Juan Manuel's El conde Lucanor has the earliest record in the CDH.^[2]
• 1386 – López de Ayala's book of falconry uses buelo for a hawk's flight.^[2]
• c. 1495 – Nebrija enters Buelo with Latin volatura and volatus.^[3]
• 1574 – the phrase de vuelo “in passing” is recorded in Santo Domingo.^[15]
• 1726–1739 – Autoridades gives the literal and the figurative sense.^[12]
• 1817 – the Academy's dictionary adds the senses in architecture, dress, the theatre and falconry.^[13]
• 1899 – the Academy defines the distance covered as the space flown without landing.^[19]

Meanings

Noun

1. flight, the act of flying: El vuelo de las grullas anuncia el otoño.^[16][1]
2. The distance a bird covers flying without landing.^[16]
3. A trip of an aircraft between its point of departure and its destination, with or without stops: Perdimos el vuelo de las ocho.^[16][1]
4. The flight feathers of a bird's wing, mostly in the plural; the whole wing.^[16]
5. The fullness of a garment, curtain or fabric where it hangs loose: una falda con mucho vuelo.^[16][17]
6. (theatre) Stage machinery that carries a person or thing through the air.^[16]
7. The trees of a mountain woodland;^[18] (law) in some traditional divisions of property, the right to the trees, held apart from the right to the land.^[16]
8. (architecture) The part of a structure that projects beyond the wall supporting it, and the length of that projection.^[16]
9. (falconry) A hawk trained to hunt other birds.^[16]
10. (Cuba, Ecuador, Chile) A lace frill on the edge of a garment.^[18]

Word family

• vuelillo

Related words

• revuelo
• volar
• volátil
• Latin volō

Usage notes

Common phrases are al vuelo “on the wing; quickly”, alzar el vuelo “to take flight” and de altos vuelos “high-flying, important”.^[1][20]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e Real Academia Española (2013–), Corpus del Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (CDH), version 3.1, https://apps.rae.es/CNDHE, p. s.v. vuelo
3. ^ 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. vuelo
4. ^ a b Bénaben, Michel (2000), Dictionnaire étymologique de l'espagnol, Paris: Ellipses, p. s.v. vuelo
5. ^ Wikcionario (Spanish Wiktionary), es.wiktionary.org
6. ^ a b c Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 5, 836
7. ^ a b c Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. volar
8. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
9. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. 7260
10. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 9431
11. ^ Diccionario del Español Medieval electrónico (DEMel), data publication 2026 (CC BY-SA), Universität Rostock, p. s.v. vuelo
12. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 6, 526
13. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1817), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 5th ed., Madrid: Imprenta Real, p. 901
14. ^ Real Academia Española (1884), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 12th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Gregorio Hernando (the first Academy edition with etymologies), p. 1100
15. ^ a b 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. vuelo
16. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k 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. vuelo
17. ^ a b c Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. vuelo
18. ^ a b c Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2010), Diccionario de americanismos, Lima: Santillana; online at https://www.asale.org/damer, p. s.v. vuelo
19. ^ Real Academia Española (1899), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 13th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de los Sres. Hernando y Compañía, p. 1030
20. ^ Alemany y Bolufer, José (1917), Diccionario de la lengua española, Barcelona: Ramón Sopena, p. 1673