Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A constellation in the polar region of the celestial Southern Hemisphere near Carina and Dorado.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun The constellation Piscis Volans.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • proper noun astronomy A small circumpolar constellation of the southern sky, said to resemble a flying fish.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun a small constellation in the polar region of the southern hemisphere near Dorado and Carina

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Latin volāns, present participle of volāre, to fly.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Named by Dutch explorers Pieter Dirkszoon Keyser and Frederick de Houtman between 1595 and 1597. Shortened from Piscis Volans, from Latin piscis volāns ("flying fish").

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Examples

  • Stein B, Volans G. Dixarit overdose: the problem of attractive tablets.

    Clonidine Overdose in Children 2010

  • At the editing stage, Henry Volans at Faber was a font of sage suggestions while Trevor Horwood cleaned and polished the manuscript with perspicacity and good humor.

    When a Billion Chinese Jump Jonathan Watts 2010

  • At the editing stage, Henry Volans at Faber was a font of sage suggestions while Trevor Horwood cleaned and polished the manuscript with perspicacity and good humor.

    When a Billion Chinese Jump Jonathan Watts 2010

  • At the editing stage, Henry Volans at Faber was a font of sage suggestions while Trevor Horwood cleaned and polished the manuscript with perspicacity and good humor.

    When a Billion Chinese Jump Jonathan Watts 2010

  • Still, the image helped set the stage for a wonderful new piece of music that sounded like sort of a mixture of John Adams at his best and Bernstein's "Age of Anxiety" piano symphony and a voice that is all Volans' own.

    Atlantic Crossing sfmike 2006

  • Still, the image helped set the stage for a wonderful new piece of music that sounded like sort of a mixture of John Adams at his best and Bernstein's "Age of Anxiety" piano symphony and a voice that is all Volans' own.

    Archive 2006-11-01 sfmike 2006

  • Or you mean Nolans but Volans, an alibi, do you Mutemalice, suffering unegoistically from the singular but positively enjoying on the plural?

    Finnegans Wake 2006

  • Like John Adams, Volans is something of a minimalist in his use of repeating patterns but like Adams he's very much a "post-minimalist."

    Atlantic Crossing sfmike 2006

  • Like John Adams, Volans is something of a minimalist in his use of repeating patterns but like Adams he's very much a "post-minimalist."

    Archive 2006-11-01 sfmike 2006

  • As with much of Volans's music, ideas don't so much develop as explode into action.

    Evening Standard - Home Nick Kimberley 2011

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