volplane: M-W's Word of the Day

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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.

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