volley

1. 1.

   be dispersed in a volley

   “gun shots volleyed at the attackers”

   Broaderdisperse
2. 2.

   hit before it touches the ground

   “volley the tennis ball”

   Broaderhit
3. 3.

   discharge in, or as if in, a volley

   “the attackers volleyed gunshots at the civilians”

   Broaderdischarge
4. 4.

   make a volley

   Broaderplay

   court game

5. 5.

   utter rapidly

   “volley a string of curses”

   Broaderutter

1. 1.

   rapid simultaneous discharge of firearms

   “our fusillade from the left flank caught them by surprise”

   Synonymsfusilladesalvoburst

   Broaderfire
2. 2.

   a tennis return made by hitting the ball before it bounces

   Antonymsground stroke

   Broaderreturn

Other forms of volley

plural

volleys·

past tense

volleyed·

present participle

volleying·

Forms marked · are formed by the regular rule rather than recorded in the source data. English keeps a few hundred irregulars and the rest follow the pattern, so the rule is right far more often than not — but it is a rule, and the mark says so.

Questions about volley

What does volley mean?

volley means "be dispersed in a volley". That is the primary sense; the word has 7 in total, listed in full on this page.

How many syllables are in volley?

volley has 2 syllables: vol-ley. The stress falls on "vol". In IPA it is /ˈvɑli/.

What is another word for volley?

Close synonyms include fusillade, salvo, burst. Each sense on this page lists its own synonyms, because a word with several meanings rarely has one substitute that works for all of them.

What is the opposite of volley?

The recorded antonyms are ground stroke.

Is volley a common word?

volley is banded "Uncommon" — turns up in careful writing rather than conversation. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.