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volant

[voh-luh nt]
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adjective
  1. engaged in or having the power of flight.
  2. moving lightly; nimble.
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noun
  1. Also called volant piece. Armor. a reinforcing piece for the brow of a helmet.
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Origin of volant

1500–10; < French, present participle of voler to fly < Latin volāre; see -ant
Related formsnon·vo·lant, adjective
Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2018

Examples from the Web for volant

Historical Examples

  • It bore for device a Falcon volant, argent, with a fetter-lock, or.

    Yorkshire Battles

    Edward Lamplough

  • Indeed, many kinds of volant animals are endemic to the Solomons.

  • The difficulty of keeping so great a mass of weighty metal in so volant an attitude, has been admirably overcome by the artist.

  • Birds about to take wing are rising; when in flight, they are volant; when at rest, they are close.

  • The appeal was comprehensible, and the charioteer, assiduously obliging, fell to posture of checking none too volant steeds.

    The So-called Human Race

    Bert Leston Taylor

British Dictionary definitions for volant

volant

adjective
  1. (usually postpositive) heraldry in a flying position
  2. rare flying or capable of flight
  3. poetic moving lightly or agilely; nimble
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Word Origin

C16: from French: flying, from voler to fly, from Latin volāre
Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Word Origin and History for volant

adj.

"flying," c.1500, from Middle French, from Latin volantem (nominative volans), present participle of volare "to fly," of unknown origin. French voler, literally "to fly," in 16c. acquired a sense of "to steal," via the transitive meaning "to make fly."

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Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas Harper