Edit page | Page history | Printable version

Volume

1. A roll; a scroll; a written document rolled up for keeping or for use, after the manner of the ancients. The papyrus, and afterward the parchment, was joined together [by the ancients] to form one sheet, and then rolled upon a staff into a volume (volumen). (Encyc. Brit)

2. Hence, a collection of printed sheets bound together, whether containing a single work, or a part of a work, or more than one work; a book; a tome; especially, that part of an extended work which is bound up together in one cover; as, a work in four volumes. An odd volume of a set of books bears not the value of its proportion to the set. (Franklin)

4. Anything of a rounded or swelling form resembling a roll; a turn; a convolution; a coil. So glides some trodden serpent on the grass, And long behind wounded volume trails. (Dryden) Undulating billows rolling their silver volumes. (W. Irving)

4. Dimensions; compass; space occupied, as measured by cubic units, that is, cubic inches, feet, yards, etc.; mass; bulk; as, the volume of an elephants body; a volume of gas.

5. Amount, fullness, quantity, or calibre of voice or tone.

(Science: chemistry) atomic volume, molecular volume, the ratio of the atomic and molecular weights divided respectively by the specific gravity of the substance in question.

(Science: physics) specific volume, the quotient obtained by dividing unity by the specific gravity; the reciprocal of the specific gravity. It is equal (when the specific gravity is referred to water at 4 deg c. As a standard) to the number of cubic centimeters occupied by one gram of the substance.

Origin: f, from L. Volumen a roll of writing, a book, volume, from volvere, volutum, to roll. See voluble.