Etymology

volley

V4O1L1L1E1Y4

Today it means: The simultaneous firing of a number of missiles or bullets; the projectiles so fired. Full definition →

Middle French volée ← Vulgar Latin volta ← Late Latin volatus
Ask AI about its historyChatGPTClaudePerplexityGoogle AIGrok

The story

  1. Late Latin · derived fromvolatus
  2. Vulgar Latin · derived fromvolta
  3. Middle French · derived fromvolée“flight”
  4. English todayvolley

From Middle French volée (“flight”), from Vulgar Latin volta, from Late Latin volatus.

Words from the same roots

Vulgar Latinvolta all →

vault

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.