volplane

****************************************************************
Calling all new word spotters! Now there's a forum for your
lexical discoveries--join Merriam-Webster Unabridged today! 
http://www.merriam-webster.com/cgi-bin/unabridged_sub.pl?refr=U_wod
****************************************************************

The Word of the Day for June 30 is: 

volplane   \VAHL-playn\   verb
   *1 : to glide in or as if in an airplane 
     2 a of an airplane : to descend gradually in controlled flight  b : to fly in a glider

Example sentence:
     An eagle soared and volplaned gracefully across the sky.

Did you know?
     "Vol plane," meaning "gliding flight," was a phrase first used by 19th-century French ornithologists to describe downward flight by birds; it contrasted with "vol a voile" ("soaring flight"). Around the time Orville and Wilbur Wright were promoting their latest "aeroplane" in France, the noun and the verb "volplane" soared to popularity in America as a term describing the daring dives by aviators. (_Fly_ magazine reported in 1910 that "the French flyers are noted for their thrilling spirals and vol planes from the sky.") The avian-to-aviator generalization was fitting, since the Wright brothers had studied the flight of birds in designing their planes.

*Indicates the sense illustrated in the example sentence.





You Are Subscribed As: [email protected]
To unsubscribe, change your e-mail address or to subscribe to the html
version of Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day, featuring audio
pronunciations, please visit:

http://www.startsampling.com/sm/wod/changeofaddress.iphtml

(c) 2006 by Merriam-Webster, Incorporated

Merriam-Webster, Inc.
47 Federal Street
P.O. Box 281
Springfield, MA 01102

*mf mwt 063006 [email protected] mf*

---
You are currently subscribed to mw-text as: [email protected]
To unsubscribe send a blank email to [email protected]