voluta

Forms

volūta f (genitive volūtae); first declension^[1]

Etymology

It is from Latin volvō (“to roll, turn”): the feminine of its perfect passive participle ⟨volūtus⟩ “rolled”, used as a noun.^[2][3][1] The name describes the rolled shape of the ornament.^[2][4]

Earliest recorded meaning

It is first found in Vitruvius, in the 1st century BC, as an architectural term for the spiral scroll set under the abacus of an Ionic or Corinthian capital.^[2][3][5]

Semantic evolution

In Classical Latin it stayed a technical word of architecture: Vitruvius describes buildings decorated with leaves and volutes, and capitals with volutes hanging down to the right and left.^[2]

In Medieval Latin the spelling volta and many variants (avolta, vouta, vauta) came to mean a vault of a building.^[5] Wiktionary traces Spanish bóveda “vault” to a Vulgar Latin ⟨*volvita⟩ from the same verb.^[1] British Medieval Latin still used voluta for the Ionic volute, and the English–Latin word lists of Huloet and Levins applied it to carved or painted drapery work.^[6] Italian voluta and French volute were taken from the Latin word,^[1][7] and English volute came through French in the 1690s.^[8]

Timeline

• c. 84–c. 25 BC – Vitruvius uses it for the spiral scroll of an Ionic or Corinthian capital.^[2][5]
• 1690s – English borrows volute for the spiral ornament of an Ionic capital, through French and Italian.^[8]

Meanings

Noun

1. (architecture) A volute: the spiral or floral scroll set under the abacus of an Ionic or Corinthian column.^[2][3][4]
2. (Medieval Latin) A vault (in the forms volta, vouta and others).^[5]
3. (Medieval Latin) Carved or painted drapery work.^[6]

Related words

• English volute

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
4. ^ a b Georges, Karl Ernst (1913–1918), Ausführliches lateinisch-deutsches Handwörterbuch, 8th ed., ed. Heinrich Georges, Hannover; Leipzig: Hahn
5. ^ a b c d Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
6. ^ a b Latham, R. E., D. R. Howlett, R. K. Ashdowne, et al. (1975–2013), Dictionary of Medieval Latin from British Sources, London: British Academy / Oxford University Press
7. ^ Conte, Gian Biagio; Pianezzola, Emilio; Ranucci, Giuliano (2010), il Latino: Vocabolario della lingua latina, 3rd ed., Florence: Le Monnier
8. ^ a b Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com