Etymologically
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transvolo

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Pronunciation

  • Classical: [ˈtrãːs.wɔ.ɫoː][1]
  • Ecclesiastical: [ˈtranz.vo.lo][1]

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]

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