voar

Forms

voar (first-person singular present voo, first-person singular preterite voei, past participle voado)^[1] Houaiss records the spelling uoar in the 14th century.^[2] Feijó (1734) rejects avoar and aboar as errors for voar.^[3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin volō (“to fly”), written Old Galician-Portuguese voar in the oldest texts.^[2][4][5][1]

The same Latin verb is Galician voar, Spanish volar, Catalan volar, French voler and Italian volare.^[6][1]

The origin of the Latin verb is uncertain.^[7][1] De Vaan, following Muller, considers a derivation from Proto-Indo-European *gʷelh₁- (“to throw, raise the arm”), the root of Ancient Greek βάλλω (bállō, “to throw”), with a shift from “raising the arm” to “flying” said of birds;^[7][1] Walde and Hofmann rejected it.^[7][1] The OLD compares a Sanskrit bird name.^[8]

Earliest recorded meaning

The Cantigas de Santa Maria of the second half of the 13th century have a swarm of bees voando “flying” and a ring that slipped from a finger and ena agua voasse “flew into the water”;^[9] Alfonso X and Johan Airas also use the verb, the latter of as aves que voavan “the birds that flew”.^[9]

Semantic evolution

Already in the Crónica Troiana the verb is used of things other than birds: lances that broke and flew in pieces.^[9] Morais in 1813 records the figurative senses “to move very fast”, said of a carriage or an arrow, and “to spread quickly”, of fame.^[10] With the invention of aircraft the verb was applied to machines and to people travelling by air, and today it also means “to go by plane”.^[2][11]

Other figurative uses are “to pass quickly” (of time), “to vanish” (of money or a fear), “to be blown up” (voar pelos ares), “to let one's thoughts wander” and “to rush at someone”.^[2][11]

Timeline

• 13th century, second half – voando and voasse in the Cantigas de Santa Maria.^[9]
• 14th century – the spelling uoar.^[2]
• c. 1430 – the verb in the Horto do Esposo (copied 1390–1437).^[12]
• 1569 – Cardoso renders voar with Latin volo.^[13]
• 1734 – Feijó rejects the spellings avoar and aboar.^[3]
• 1813 – Morais records voa a fama “fame spreads”.^[10]

Meanings

Verb

1. To fly: to stay up and move through the air with wings or by machine.^[2][11][1]
2. To travel by air, to go by plane: voar para Lisboa.^[2]
3. To move swiftly through the air; to float, flutter (of a flag or a balloon).^[2][11]
4. To be blown up, to burst into pieces: voar pelos ares.^[2]
5. (figurative) To run or rush; to hurry somewhere.^[2][11]
6. (figurative) To pass quickly (of time); to vanish (of money, a feeling).^[2]
7. (figurative) To spread quickly (of news or a rumour).^[2][11]
8. (figurative) To daydream, to let the mind wander.^[2]
9. (figurative) To rush at, attack someone.^[2]

Word family

• voo
• voador
• revoar
• revoada
• esvoaçar
• avoar
• avoado
• voante

Related words

• volante
• volátil
• Latin volō
• Galician voar
• Spanish volar

Usage notes

Voar alto is to aim very high, or to have unreasonable ambitions.^[2]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. voar
3. ^ a b Feijó, João de Morais Madureira (1734), Orthographia, ou Arte de escrever, e pronunciar com acerto a lingua portugueza, Lisboa (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. voar
4. ^ Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. s.v. voar
5. ^ Nascentes, Antenor (1966), Dicionário etimológico resumido, Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Nacional do Livro, p. s.v. voar
6. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 9431
7. ^ 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
8. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
9. ^ a b c d Instituto da Lingua Galega, Dicionario de dicionarios do galego medieval (DDGM), ed. Ernesto González Seoane, Santiago de Compostela: Universidade de Santiago de Compostela, https://ilg.usc.gal/ddgm, p. s.v. voar
10. ^ a b Silva, António de Morais (1813), Diccionario da lingua portugueza, 2nd ed., 2 vols., Lisboa: Typographia Lacerdina, p. 2, 862
11. ^ a b c d e f Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. voar
12. ^ Centro de Linguística da Universidade de Lisboa, CTA – Corpus de Textos Antigos, https://teitok.clul.ul.pt/cta, p. s.v. voar
13. ^ Cardoso, Jerónimo (1569–1570), Dictionarium ex lusitanico in latinum sermonem, Lisboa: João Álvares (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. voar