Where does “volatile” come from?

Volatile comes from Middle French volatile, from Latin volatilis meaning "flying," derived from Latin volo "to fly," ultimately from Proto-Indo-European gʷelH-.

volatile (English): Evaporating or vaporizing readily under normal...

Definitions

  1. Evaporating or vaporizing readily under normal...

Ancestry of “volatile”, step by step

StepLanguageWordMeaning
1Middle Frenchvolatile—
2Latinvolātilisflying, winged
3Latin-ilis-ile
4Proto-Italic-elis—
5Proto-Indo-European-elis—
6Proto-Indo-European-lósForms agent nouns from verbal roots

Words derived from “volatile”

Every word from Proto-Indo-European -lós →Every word from Latin -ilis →Every word from Latin volātilis →