Volley

How to spell volley

6 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce volley

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does volley mean?

1. nounA number of things, such as bullets, arrows, or words, released or directed all at once.
2. verbTo strike a ball before it touches the ground.

Volley in a sentence

• noun

  The soldiers fired a single volley before reloading.

• verb

  She likes to volley the ball back across the net at speed.

• noun

  A volley of angry emails landed in her inbox after the announcement.

• verb

  Good tennis players can volley a fast serve with ease.

Where does volley come from?

Language of origin: French

This word arrived from the French volée, meaning 'a flight' or 'the act of flying', which itself grew out of the Latin verb volare, 'to fly'. The earliest English use in the late 1500s was military: a 'volley' was a simultaneous discharge of many guns or arrows, picturing the projectiles flying through the air together. From that image the word spread to anything released in a sudden burst, such as a volley of insults or questions. In ball sports it later came to mean striking a ball while it is still in flight, before it touches the ground, which keeps the original 'flying' sense very neatly. The same volare root flies through other English words such as 'volatile', literally 'able to fly off', a useful link for remembering the double 'l' followed by the soft 'ey' ending.

How the word is built

• voll- (from French volée: a flight, from Latin volare 'to fly')
• -ey (noun/verb ending)