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• volta
  volta

  noun

  turn; time (used in phrases).
• Volta
  Volta

  noun

  Count Alessandro 1745–1827, Italian physicist.

volta

¹ American  

[vohl-tuh, vol-, vawl-tah] / ˈvoʊl tə, ˈvɒl-, ˈvɔl tɑ /

noun

• volte,
  plural
• voltas
  plural

1. Music. turn; time (used in phrases).

   una volta (“once”);

   prima volta (“first time”).

2. Poetry. a rhetorical turn, especially in a sonnet; a sudden shift in theme or emotion.

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Volta ² American  

[vohl-tuh, vawl-tah, vol-tuh, vohl-] / ˈvoʊl tə, ˈvɔl tɑ, ˈvɒl tə, ˈvoʊl- /

noun

1. Count Alessandro 1745–1827, Italian physicist.

2. a river in W Africa, in Ghana, formed by the confluence of the Black Volta and the White Volta and flowing S into the Bight of Benin. About 250 miles (400 km) long; with branches about 1,240 miles (1,995 km) long.

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Volta ¹ British  

/ ˈvɒltə /

noun

1. a river in W Africa, formed by the confluence of the Black Volta and the White Volta in N central Ghana: flows south to the Bight of Benin: the chief river of Ghana. Length: 480 km (300 miles); (including the Black Volta) 1600 km (1000 miles)

2. an artificial lake in Ghana, extending 408 km (250 miles) upstream from the Volta River Dam on the Volta River: completed in 1966. Area: 8482 sq km (3275 sq miles)

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volta ² British  

/ ˈvɔlta, ˈvɒltə /

noun

1. a quick-moving Italian dance popular during the 16th and 17th centuries

2. a piece of music written for or in the rhythm of this dance, in triple time

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Volta ³ British  

/ ˈvɔlta, ˈvəʊltə /

noun

1. Count Alessandro (alesˈsandro). 1745–1827, Italian physicist after whom the volt is named. He made important contributions to the theory of current electricity and invented the voltaic pile (1800), the electrophorus (1775), and an electroscope

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Volta Scientific  

/ vōl′tə /

1. Italian physicist who in 1800 invented the voltaic pile, which was the first source of continuous electric current. The volt unit of electromotive force is named for him.

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Other Word Forms

Noun Inflected Forms

• voltas
  plural
• volte
  plural

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Etymology

Origin of volta

1635–45; < Italian: a turn; volt ²

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Example Sentences

See Examples For:

volta Volta voltas volte

Here, the tension was a child’s divided life due to a parent’s divorce, and the volta begins with, “But let me say ...” which prefaces the final beautiful five lines.

From New York Times ● May 5, 2022

In Lock’s sonnets, the conjunctions that would typically signal a volta are often a ruse.

From The New Yorker ● Aug. 5, 2019

For him the excitement of the sonnet stems from its insistence on change: It must include a volta — a sudden turn, a new argument.

From New York Times ● Jun. 19, 2018

“Believing,” with its implication of subsequent disbelief, works like a volta, a sudden turn into the impossible.

From Slate ● Jan. 7, 2016

It seemed to me that a strange voice repeated an old romance that I had long since forgotten:   Altra volta gieri biele,   Blanch' e rossa com' un flore,   Ma ora no.

From The Confession of a Child of the Century by Kendall Warren

"Following Fin Tarling's tragic passing on Friday, the NSN Development Team has withdrawn from the remaining Volta a Portugal stages," NSN said in a statement on Saturday morning.

From BBC ● Aug. 15, 2026

Finlay Tarling's team, NSN Development, have withdrawn from the remaining stages of the Volta a Portugal following the British cyclist's death.

From BBC ● Aug. 15, 2026

British cyclist Finlay Tarling has died aged 19, after a serious accident during the eighth stage of the Volta a Portugal.

From BBC ● Aug. 14, 2026

His system uses the same mechanism as the voltaic pile, the world's first electrical battery giving a continuous current invented in 1799 by Alessandro Volta.

From Barron's ● Aug. 5, 2026

“You won’t be gleaning,” Scythe Volta said, putting a comforting hand on Rowan’s shoulder.

From "Scythe" by Neal Shusterman

But Smith says they are fundamentally a “formalist”, who loves to “geek out” over sonnet crowns and voltas.

From The Guardian ● Feb. 8, 2020

As the scholar Roland Greene writes, although the sonnet was “practically a technology for representing voltas or turns of all psychic sorts,” Lock’s cycle “refuses invention to a degree almost unprecedented at the time.”

From The New Yorker ● Aug. 5, 2019

The roundels include cartas, motes, voltas, cantigas, trovas, pastorals and endechas.

From Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 5, Slice 1 "Calhoun" to "Camoens" by Various

Although the headlines were dominated by Saylor’s apparent volte face, the bulk of Saylor’s commentary was as bullish as investors have come to expect.

From MarketWatch ● May 6, 2026

Beyond this, the reasons for the timing of the government's volte face are speculative.

From BBC ● Dec. 24, 2025

She is deeply caring of her mother but retains a wariness around her—hints of buried wounds—that helps explain her apparent volte face.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Dec. 9, 2025

The volte face came after a record-high euro zone inflation print.

From Reuters ● Feb. 4, 2022

It was not a volte face of character: that did not change.

From "Absalom, Absalom!" by William Faulkner

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