VOLITATION/vɒlɪˈteɪʃən/

Flying, flight.

Now a rare word, though it does occasionally turn up in elevated prose, as in James Gould Cozzons’ By Love Possessed (1957): “Flight from physical self ... was futile. Volitations of that kind were, for the expedition’s rank and file at least, neither afforded nor countenanced”. It is first recorded by the Oxford English Dictionary in Sir Thomas Browne’s Vulgar Errors of 1646: “Birds or flying animals ... are almost erect, advancing the head and breast in their progression, and only prone in the act of their volitation”. To find its origin we have to go back to the Latin volare, “to fly”. This word is also the source of our volatile, originally “a winged creature”, such as a butterfly or bird, and only later taking on the figurative senses of “something that evaporates quickly”, or “changeable, fickle”. Also from the same source is volley, which is, etymologically speaking, a flight of something, such as missiles, and volant, mainly used these days as a specialist zoological term for “able to fly”.

World Wide Words is copyright © Michael Quinion, 1996–2009. All rights reserved. Contact me if you want to reproduce this piece, but first see my advice page, which also has notes about linking. Your comments and corrections are welcome.