volito

Forms

volitō (present infinitive volitāre, perfect active volitāvī, supine volitātum); first conjugation, no passive^[1]

Etymology

It is the frequentative of volō (“to fly”), with the suffix -itō.^[2][1][3] De Vaan reconstructs ⟨volō⟩ as Proto-Italic *gʷelaje-, and following Muller, though Walde and Hofmann reject it, derives it from Proto-Indo-European *gʷelh₁- (“to raise the arm, throw”), cognate with Ancient Greek βάλλω (bállō, “to throw”); the step from “raise the arm” to “fly” would come from birds.^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

De Vaan gives Ennius as its first author,^[4] in the line volitō vīvus per ōra virum, “I fly alive on the lips of men”.^[2]

Semantic evolution

It is to fly about, as Cicero's birds and Ovid's bird flying near the ground, and is said of the souls of the dead, as in Lucretius; poets use it of ships under sail.^[2][3] Of things it is to move swiftly through the air, as Lucretius' atoms, and of reports to spread, as in Ennius; it is also to flutter or flicker in one place.^[2]

Of people it is to move about rapidly or openly, to rush about in war, as Virgil's Volscians, and to flit from one activity to another.^[2][3] Church Latin glosses it “fly about, flutter, flit, hover”.^[5]

Timeline

• 204–169 BC – Ennius' volitō vīvus per ōra virum.^[2][4][6]
• 96–55 BC – Lucretius of atoms and of souls.^[2][6]
• 81–43 BC – Cicero of birds.^[2][3][6]
• 70–19 BC – Virgil of warriors rushing about.^[2][6]

Meanings

Verb

1. To fly about, flit, flutter;^[2][3][1] (of souls) to hover;^[2][3][1] (of ships) to speed.^[2][3][1]
2. (of things) To move swiftly;^[2] (of reports) to spread; to flicker.^[2]
3. To move about rapidly, rush about; to flit from one thing to another.^[2][1]

Word family

• circumvolitō
• intervolitō
• involitō

Related words

• volō
• volucris
• ēvolō
• volātus

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ 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
3. ^ a b c d e f g Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
4. ^ a b c de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
5. ^ Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson
6. ^ a b c d Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de