Also 7, 9 vol. [a. F. vole (1642), app. f. voler, ad. L. volāre to fly.] The winning of all the tricks in certain card-games, as écarté, quadrille or ombre. Freq. to win the vole.
1679. Dryden, Limberham, IV. i. Pug has sent me to you … to bring you down to Cards again;… She’ll never forgive you the last Vol you won.
1712–3. Swift, Jrnl. to Stella, 7 March. I played at ombre … for three hours. There were three voles against me,… but [I] came off for three shillings and sixpence.
1728. Vanbr. & Cib., Prov. Husb., V. iii. Unless … sometimes winning a great Stake; laying down a Vole, sans prendre may come up, to the profitable Pleasure you were speaking of.
1741. Mrs. E. Montagu, Lett. (1813), II. 111. Many there would have gone twice as far to have saved a vole at quadrille.
1778. Camp Guide, 12.
| To win a great battle—I think from my soul, | |
| Is rather more dubious, than Quadrille the vole! |
1810. Crabbe, Borough, xvi. 224. Cards answer’d to her call … ‘A vole! a vole!’ she cried, ‘t’is fairly won.’
1861. Macm. Mag., Dec., 131. Unless the winners should choose to undertake to make all the ten tricks [in Quadrille], which is called the vole.
1894. Wilkins & Vivian, Green Bay Tree, I. 21. ‘A gentle flutter at ecarté.’ ‘In which you began with King and vol each game, I wager.’
b. To go the vole, to run every risk in the hope of great gain; to try all shifts.
1816. Scott, Antiq., iv. Who is he?—why, he has gone the vole—has been soldier, ballad-singer, travelling tinker, and is now a beggar. Ibid. (1827), Jrnl. (1890), II. 62. He thinks Cadell’s account must turn up trumps, and is for going the vole.
1895. Daily News, 27 May, 8/3. In the old phrase he [Balzac] ‘went the vole,’ he would be colossal, or a blank failure.
Hence Vole v. intr., to win the vole. rare–1.
1735. Pope, Donne’s Sat., IV. 146. Shortly no lad shall chuck, or lady vole, But some excising Courtier will have toll.
