a. Also 6 Sc. vollage. [a. OF. and F. volage, f. voler:—L. volāre to fly.] Giddy, foolish; fickle, inconstant. (In later literary use reintroduced from mod. French.) Also in comb. volage-brained.
a. 1366[?]. Chaucer, Rom. Rose, 128. She fulfilled of lustynesse, That was not yit twelve yeer of age, With herte wylde, and thought volage. Ibid. (c. 1386), Manc. T., 135. Whan phebus wyf had sent for hir lemman Anon þay wrouȝten al her wil volage.
1402[?]. Quixley, Ballades, xvii. in Yorksh. Arch. Jrnl. (1909), XX. 49. Vnto Gawayn may he be resemblyng, Curteys of loue, bot he was ouer volage.
1480. Caxton, Ovid’s Metam., XIV. ii. (Roxb.), 56 b. He [Eneas] hath the herte harde, volage & more orageo[us] than the see.
1509. Barclay, Shyp of Folys (1570), 194. A woman, variable as the winde Being of hir love unstable and volage.
c. 1520. Barclay, Jugurtha (1557), 66. As a volage brained man he fullye determined agayne to begynne and continue the warre … rather then to yelde hym selfe to deathe or captivitie.
1549. Compl. of Scotlande, i. 22. Oure vit is ouer febil, oure ingyne ouer harde, oure thochtis ouer vollage, ande oure ȝeiris ouer schort.
a. 1722. Ld. Fountainhall, Decisions (1759), I. 484. Some doubted how far such volage expressions inferred treason, being but lubricum linguæ.
a. 1773. Mrs. E. Montagu, in Garrick’s Private Corr. (1832), II. 375. Lord Lyttelton is more volage, more difficult to fix, than any of Messieurs les Maccaronis.
[1825. Jamieson, Suppl., s.v., He’s unco volage o’ his siller.]
1845. [Emma Robinson], Whitehall, xxii. As naturally alluring as beds of flowers to the volage butterfly.
1859. Meredith, R. Feverel, xxxvi. Both [parties] are volage: wine, tobacco, and the moon, influence both alike.
1865. ‘Ouida,’ Strathmore, vi. I. 94. The volage, and somewhat indiscreet Princesse de Lurine.
Hence † Volageness. Obs.
1633. Ld. Wariston, Diary (S.H.S.), 179. The fear of folks speaking, rayling, and jesting at my sudaine chainge and volagnes disuaded me.
