volume
Pluralvolumes (some meanings)
Pluralvolumes (some meanings)
- 1The strength or loudness of a sound.
She lowered the volume before the baby woke up.
Sound engineers carefully balance the volume of each instrument.
UsageOften turn the volume up or down, or at full volume.
Similarloudness
- 2An amount or quantity of something, especially a large one, such as goods sold, work done, or money in circulation.
Online stores handle a huge volume of orders during the holidays.
The volume of traffic on this road has grown each year.
UsageOften a large volume of something: a huge volume of orders. Also sales volume, traffic volume.
- 3The three-dimensional amount of space an object or region occupies, having length, width, and height and measured in cubic units.
The volume of the container determines how much liquid it can hold.
Engineers calculated the volume of concrete needed for the foundation.
Similarcapacity
- 4A book, especially a large one, or one of the books that together make up a larger work or set.
The library keeps its rarest volumes in a locked glass case.
She inherited a leather-bound volume of fairy tales.
Note
Size is not built into the word: The American novelist Winston Churchill's The Celebrity (1897) calls the book that made a man famous a "dainty volume," so a slim book qualifies as readily as a heavy one.
- 5A numbered set of a periodical's issues, usually those published in one year.
Researchers cited an article from volume 42 of the journal.
The bound volume holds all twelve monthly issues.
UsageIn references it comes before the issue: volume 42, issue 3, often shortened to vol. 42.
Note
Periodicals number their volumes, usually one a year, and a reference puts the volume first and the issue second: volume 23, issue 45 locates one copy within one volume. When a volume's issues are gathered between covers, the result is also called a volume, and there this sense meets the bound book.
Checked 5 Nov 2026 · 3 facts
- Periodical volumes are numbered and generally correspond to one year. library.leedstrinity.ac.uk
- References give the volume before the issue; the example means issue 45 within volume 23. stylemanual.gov.au
- Periodical issues bound together form a physical volume. en.wikipedia.org
- 6The quality of being full or thick, especially in a person's hair, so that it looks full instead of lying flat.
Teasing the hair at the crown adds volume without much product.
The mascara promises length and volume for thin lashes.
UsageUsually add volume or give hair volume, with no a.
Similarbody, fullness, lift, thickness
Note
A word from the salon and the beauty counter, where products and techniques promise to add volume to hair or lashes. Unlike the measure of space, this volume is usually discussed without numbers: hair has volume or lacks it, and the opposite people complain of is flat hair.
- 7A great amount of meaning or significance about something, especially as conveyed without explicit statement.
His refusal to comment spoke volumes about the scandal.
The condition of the house spoke volumes about its former owners.
UsageNearly always speak volumes, often with about: her silence spoke volumes about her feelings.
Note
Speak volumes is the familiar pairing, but Henry Rider Haggard's She (1886–87) has a single word whose tone "meant volumes," so the verb can vary. The image is of a tone, a gesture or a silence that is worth whole books of explanation.
- 8An accessible storage area with a single file system, usually located on one partition of a hard disk.
The administrator formatted the volume before installing the system.
Each volume on the server uses its own file system.
Note
Easy to confuse with partition. A partition is a slice of a physical disk, while a volume is usable storage defined by its single file system. Usually a volume sits on one partition, which is why people swap the words. Formatting creates a file system on a partition or volume, and that file system is what makes it usable for storing files.
Checked 5 Nov 2026 · 4 facts
- A partition is a logical division of a physical disk. learn.microsoft.com
- A volume is an addressable storage area with a single file system. en.wikipedia.org
- A volume usually occupies one partition. learn.microsoft.com
- High-level formatting creates a file system within a partition or logical volume; formatting is not exclusive to volumes. en.wikipedia.org
Less common meanings
- 9The total amount of weight training done for a muscle in a session or a week, usually found by multiplying sets, repetitions and load.
Coaches often raise weekly volume gradually to drive muscle growth.
He calculates his volume by multiplying weight, sets, and reps together.
Note
Gym arithmetic: the usual count adds up the weight of every repetition, which comes to sets times reps times load. Because it is a sum, a lifter can raise it by adding sets or repetitions without touching the load. Lifters talk of raising or tracking their volume and treat it as a key stimulus for muscle growth.
- 10A roll or scroll of written material, the form taken by books in the ancient world.
Note
The meaning closest to the Latin roll behind the bound-book sense. It is obsolete. A modern writer describing an ancient text calls it a scroll or a roll and keeps volume for a book with pages. When it turns up in older prose, it means the wound sheet itself, not a bound copy.
Checked 5 Nov 2026 · 2 facts
- The English word derives ultimately from a Latin word meaning a book or roll. en.wiktionary.org
- In the scroll sense, volume denotes rolled writing material rather than a bound codex. en.wikipedia.org
- 11A rounded mass, or a coiled, folded convolution of something.
- 12A modular, often triangular or pyramidal block attached to a climbing wall and used as a foothold or grip.
- 13The total obtained by adding together the degrees of all the vertices in a chosen set.
- 14To swell or expand, growing greater in size.
- 15To cause something to move or waft through the air.
The record player on the first floor volumed up Lonnie Johnson singing, “Tomorrow night, will you remember what you said tonight?”
1969, Maya Angelou, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings - 16To float through the air, as a scent or smoke does.
Showing meanings only.
Practice
Can you tell the meanings of volume apart? Answer 3 quick questions from this page, or write your own sentence and AI will check it.
Origin
Latin "volumen" ("book, roll"), built on "volvo" ("to roll, turn about"), passed into Old French as "volume," and Middle English borrowed it in that same form.