volant

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for July 3, 2012 is: volant • \VOH-lunt\  • adjective 1 : having the wings extended as if in flight - used of a heraldic bird 2 : flying or capable of flying 3 : quick, nimble Examples: One prominent feature of the family's crest is a hawk volant. "In general, population genetic studies of volant animals are of particular interest because of their potential for long-distance dispersal and high levels of gene flow over terrestrial and oceanic landscapes." - From the 2012 book Evolutionary History of Bats: Fossils, Molecules and Morphology, by Gregg F. Gunnell and Nancy B. Simmons Did you know? English picked up "volant" from Middle French. The term survives in Modern French as well, both as an adjective having essentially the same meaning as the English term, and as a noun with several meanings (among them "shuttlecock"). The influence of French can be seen doubly in the heraldic sense of "volant": in heraldic contexts, as in our first example sentence above, the adjective "volant" almost always appears after the noun - a syntax picked up from French along with the meaning. Ultimately, "volant" comes from the Latin verb "volare," meaning "to fly." Another word that came to English through Middle French from "volare" is "volley," which refers to things flying back and forth through the air. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.