volé

Volé is a French past participle of the verb voler, which has two principal senses: to fly and to steal. In everyday usage, volé can function as a verb form in compound tenses or as an adjective describing something that has been taken without permission. As an adjective, volé means stolen, as in un objet volé or des biens volés.

Etymologically, voler comes from Old French voler, itself from Latin volare meaning “to fly.” The sense “to steal” developed from the idea of carrying something away by flight. The two meanings remain closely linked in French, and the form volé is used for both depending on the grammatical role.

Grammatical notes: In compound tenses, volé is the past participle of voler and takes the auxiliary avoir. The participle may agree in gender and number with a preceding direct object, for example, Les sacs volés (the stolen bags) or Le sac que j’ai volé (the bag that I stole). For the passive voice, one uses être: Le sac a été volé (the bag was stolen). When used to mean “to fly,” volé is still the past participle of voler with the normal auxiliary for the tense, as in L’avion a volé vers Paris or L’oiseau a volé au-dessus du lac.

Usage examples: L’avion a volé vers Lyon. Mon sac a été volé hier soir. Ce sont des biens volés et doivent être restitués. The word volé thus serves in both legal/administrative contexts (the stolen item) and descriptive contexts (the flight of an aircraft or bird).