Volta

/vohl"teuh/ or, It. /vawl"tah/ for 1; /vol"teuh, vohl"-/ for 2, n.

1. Count Alessandro /ah'les sahn"drddaw/, 1745-1827, Italian physicist.

2. a river in W Africa, in Ghana, formed by the confluence of the Black Volta and the White Volta and flowing S into the Bight of Benin. ab. 250 mi. (400 km) long; with branches ab. 1240 mi. (1995 km) long.

* * *

(as used in expressions)

Upper Volta

Volta River

Volta Alessandro Giuseppe Antonio Anastasio

Volta Lake

White Volta River

* * *

▪ poetry

Italian“turn”

      the turn in thought in a sonnet that is often indicated by such initial words as But, Yet, or And yet.

      The volta occurs between the octet and sestet in a Petrarchan sonnet and sometimes between the 8th and 9th or between the 12th and 13th lines of a Shakespearean sonnet, as in William Shakespeare (Shakespeare, William)'s sonnet number 130:

My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun;

Coral is far more red than her lips' red;

If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;

If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.

I have seen roses damask'd, red and white,

But no such roses see I in her cheeks;

And in some perfumes is there more delight

Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.

I love to hear her speak, yet well I know

That music hath a far more pleasing sound;

I grant I never saw a goddess go;

My mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground.

And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare

As any she belied with false compare.

* * *