volaemum

• volēmum

Unknown. Natively explained a being so called because one is so large that the vola (“cupped hand”) envelops the former when the latter approaches from below, possibly with the same suffix as Proto-Slavic *golěmъ (“large”), after Maurus Servius Honoratus’s Commentary to Georgica 2, 88: Nam et volema ab eo quod volam impleant dicta sunt. Unde et involare dicimus. Whereafter it is noted dismissively, in a probable interpolation, that it is the word for “large” in Gaulish: Volema autem, Gallica lingua, bona et grandia dicuntur. sed magis dicta sunt ab eo, quod volam implicant.

• (Classical) IPA^(key): /u̯oˈlae̯.mum/, [u̯ɔˈɫ̪äe̯mʊ̃ˑ]
• (modern Italianate Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): /voˈle.mum/, [voˈlɛːmum]

volaemum n (genitive volaemī); second declension

1. large kind of pear

Second-declension noun (neuter).