voilà
English
Alternative forms
- voila
- wallah (misspelling)
- whalah (misspelling)
Etymology
Pronunciation
- (UK) IPA(key): /vwæˈlɑː/, /vwɑːˈlɑː/, /vwʌˈlɑː/[1]
- IPA(key): (US) /(v)wɑˈlɑ/[1]
Audio (US): (file) Audio (General American): (file)
Interjection
voilà
Synonyms
- See Thesaurus:lo
Translations
behold!
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References
Anagrams
French
Alternative forms
- v'là, voili, voilou, voili voilou (colloquial)
Etymology
Literally, “look there”. From vois (“see!, look!”), second-person singular imperative of voir (“to see, to look”) and là (“there”).
Pronunciation
Verb
voilà (defective)
- there (it) is, there (it) comes
- 1953, Samuel Beckett, En attendant Godot:
- Voilà l’homme tout entier, s’en prenant à sa chaussure alors que c’est son pied le coupable.
- There is man in his entirety, blaming his shoe when his foot is guilty.
- here (it) is, here (it) comes
- Voilà le fromage.
- Here's the cheese.
- Voilà ce qu'on va faire ensuite.
- Here's what we are going to do next.
- that is (introduces something one has said, whereas voici something one is about to
- Voilà ce que je lui ai demandé, et voici sa réponse : « ... »
- That's what I asked her and this is her answer: "..."
- expresses something completed; used with pronouns, can serve as a loose copula
- Voilà qui est fait.
- That's done/That's over with.
- Me voilà fini! ― I'm done for!
- expresses the unexpected or abrupt nature of an event
- Comme nous étions à la promenade, voilà qu’une ondée vint à tomber.
- As we were taking a walk, a huge rainshower suddenly began to fall.
Usage notes
- voilà is a defective verb. Its only conjugation is in the present indicative tense, even though it can appear in phrases that imply another tense.
- It can take direct object pronouns:
- La voilà! ― There she is/comes!
- Eh ben, nous voilà dans de beaux draps. ― Well, we're in trouble.
- Indirect object pronouns:
- Nous voilà encore plus de pain sur la planche.
- We've got even more work to do.
- (literally, “There is even more work to do for us.”)
- Et lui voilà pas arrivée toute sa famille.
- And then comes her whole family.
- (literally, “And there comes to her/for her her whole family.”)
- As well as partitive and locative pronouns (en and y)
- “Tu vois les joueurs ?”, “Oui, en voilà un.” ― “Have you seen the players?”, “Yes, there comes one of them.”
- Nous y voilà ! ― At least, here we are!
- It can also occur in relative clauses:
- l'homme que voilà ― the man who is there/that man (right) there
- It is mainly used to introduce a slightly distant person or object, in contrast to voici which is used to designate a person or object near the speaker.
- In face-to-face conversations where both participants can see the subject of the conversation, voilà often supersedes voici (thus its additional definition: Here is).
- When voici and voilà are interchangeable, the former can be taken as of a higher register than the latter; voici is also altogether rarer in day-to-day conversation:
- Voici la porte is a polite way to tell someone where the exit is whereas,
- Voilà la porte could in some cases be considered rude and roughly translated as an invitation to leave.
Derived terms
Preposition
voilà
- it has been, ago
Related terms
Further reading
- “voilà”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.
Anagrams
Indonesian
Etymology
Unadapted borrowing from French voilà (literally “look there”).
Interjection
voilà
Further reading
- “voilà” in Kamus Besar Bahasa Indonesia, Jakarta: Agency for Language Development and Cultivation – Ministry of Education, Culture, Research, and Technology of the Republic of Indonesia, 2016.
Italian
Interjection
voilà
Anagrams
Polish
Etymology
Unadapted borrowing from French voilà.
Pronunciation
- IPA(key): /vwaˈla/
- Rhymes: -a
- Syllabification: voi‧là
Interjection
voilà
Further reading
- voilà in Polish dictionaries at PWN
Spanish
Etymology
Unadapted borrowing from French voilà.
Pronunciation
- IPA(key): /bwaˈla/ [bwaˈla]
- Rhymes: -a
Interjection
voilà
- alternative form of vualá
Usage notes
According to Royal Spanish Academy (RAE) prescriptions, unadapted foreign words should be written in italics in a text printed in roman type, and vice versa, and in quotation marks in a manuscript text or when italics are not available. In practice, this RAE prescription is not always followed.