[f. SOAR v.]
1. fig. Rising to a great height, high pitch, etc.; egregious; ambitious, aspiring; sublime.
(a) 1607. Shaks., Cor., II. i. 270. When his soaring Insolence Shall teach the People.
1665. Boyle, Occas. Refl., IV. xiii. (1848), 248. To make a Rise to their soaring flight of a Tower, whose Top should reach unto Heaven.
1687. trans. Sallust (1692), 33. Of soaring and egregious Parts.
1814. Scott, Wav., lix. The same soaring and ardent spirit, for whom the whole earth seemed too narrow.
1848. W. K. Kelly, trans. L. Blanc’s Hist. Ten Y., I. 552. A bold and soaring mind.
1879. Stanley, Manzoni’s Hymn for Whitsunday. The New World’s soaring wants.
1889. A. J. Duffield, in Spectator, 9 Nov., 633/1. This soaring insolence of these Christian young men is but a straw in the street.
(b) 1695. J. Edwards, Perfect. H. Script., 418. This Evangelist … is more sublime and soaring than the rest.
1847. Emerson, Repres. Men, Montaigne, Wks. (Bohn), I. 351. In the heart of each maiden,… in the soul of the soaring saint, this chasm is found.
2. Rising high by means of actual flight; flying high in the air. Also fig. and Her.
This sense occurs earlier in the comb. high-soaring.
1683. Tryon, Way to Health, xix. (1697), 415. The soaring Wing of a Devout Meditation.
1828. [see SOARANT].
1868. Cussans, Her. (1893), 95. Soaring, or Volant: Flying.
1871. Whyte-Melville, Sarchedon, I. 4. Those specks on the upper sky widened into huge soaring vultures.
1893. Westm. Gaz., 15 Sept., 7/2. The wing area of soaring birds varies from one to above two square feet per pound of weight.
transf. 1891. Science-Gossip, XXVII. 90. In reference to the soaring flight of birds.
3. Of imposing altitude; lofty, towering.
1687. trans. Sallust (1692), 71. They who being arriv’d to large Command, live in the soaring height of Greatness.
1818. Byron, Ch. Har., IV. lxxiii. I have seen the soaring Jungfrau rear Her never-trodden snow.
b. Arch. Rising lightly or gracefully to a considerable height; characterized by loftiness and gracefulness.
1849. Ruskin, Sev. Lamps, iii. § xxiv. 92. The soaring arches and kingly crowning of the gates of Abbeville, Rouen, and Rheims.
1849. Freeman, Archit., 6. The solemn massiveness of the Romanesque Cathedral, the soaring majesty of its Gothic successor.
1884. R. G. White, in Century Mag., March, 682/1. For them no soaring nave and dimly lighted clearstory.
Hence Soaringly adv.
1817. Byron, Manfred, I. i. 95. Their summits to heaven Shoot soaringly forth.
1844. Blackw. Mag., LV. 102. How gallantly the water-jets curve soaringly!
