transvolo

Forms

trānsvolō (present infinitive trānsvolāre, perfect active trānsvolāvī, supine trānsvolātum); first conjugation^[1] Also spelled trāvolō.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is from Latin trāns- (“across”) + volō² (“to fly”).^[4][1] De Vaan reconstructs volō² as Proto-Italic *gʷela-je/o- from Proto-Indo-European *gʷelh₁-ie/o- (“to raise the arm, throw”), a link he finds conceivable but which Walde and Hofmann rejected.^[5]

Earliest recorded meaning

It is found from Plautus on,^[5] who uses the form travolaverunt: the arms a character carried “flew across to the enemy”.^[4][2][3]

Semantic evolution

Its basic sense is “to fly across”: Seneca uses it of birds of prey flying past, and Pliny the Elder of partridges that will not fly across the borders of Boeotia into Attica.^[4][2] It was used of anything that moves through the air, as a voice in Lucretius, and of moving fast as if flying: in Livy a horseman crosses to the other wing to bring news of victory, and Asinius Pollio, in a letter to Cicero, asks whether he could fly over the Alps.^[4][2][3]

Horace has it of Cupid flying past dry oaks, and Quintilian of what slips past a listener.^[4] Pliny and Gellius also use it of time or ripeness passing quickly by.^[4]

Timeline

• c. 250–184 BC – Plautus uses the form travolare of arms flying to the enemy.^[4][3]
• 96–55 BC – Lucretius uses it of a voice flying through the air.^[4][2]
• 65–8 BC – Horace uses it of Cupid flying past.^[4]
• 23/24–79 AD – Pliny the Elder uses it of birds and of the flow of the Nile.^[4][2]

Meanings

Verb

1. To fly across, fly from one side to the other.^[4][2]
2. To move through the air; to cross swiftly as if flying.^[4][3]
3. To fly over something without touching it.^[4]
4. Of time, to pass by quickly.^[4]

Related words

• trānsvolitō
• ēvolō

Usage notes

Varro explains the name of the ladle trua by the water “flying across” it (transvolat).^[4]

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
3. ^ a b c d e Georges, Karl Ernst (1913–1918), Ausführliches lateinisch-deutsches Handwörterbuch, 8th ed., ed. Heinrich Georges, Hannover; Leipzig: Hahn
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
5. ^ 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