volplane

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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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