voilà

See also: voila and voilá

English

Alternative forms

• voila
• wallah (misspelling)
• whalah (misspelling)

Etymology

Borrowed from French voilà.

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /vwæˈlɑː/, /vwɑːˈlɑː/, /vwʌˈlɑː/
• (US) IPA^(key): /(v)wɑˈlɑ/

• Audio (US):

  (file)

• Audio (General American):

  (file)

Interjection

voilà

1. Lo, there it is; see here; ta-da; presto; behold!

Synonyms

• See Thesaurus:lo

Translations

behold!

• Arabic:

  Egyptian Arabic: أهو m (ʔahu), أهي f (ʔahe), أهم pl (ʔahum)

  Hijazi Arabic: أهو m (ahō), أهي f (ahē), أهم pl (ahum)

• Catalan: justa la fusta, això mateix, ara m’agrades, Àngela Maria (ca)
• Chinese:

  Cantonese: 睇 (yue) (tai²)

  Mandarin: 瞧 (zh) (qiáo)

• Dutch: voilà (nl)
• Esperanto: jen (eo)
• Finnish: noin (fi), kas tässä, no niin, avot
• French: voilà (fr)
• Galician: velaí, velaquí, eis
• German: voilà (de)
• Hungarian: voálá, íme (hu), tessék (hu)
• Latin: ecce
• Latvian: lūk, āre, re (lv)
• Polish: oto (pl), ot (pl), voilà (pl)
• Portuguese: eis (pt)
• Romanian: iată (ro)
• Russian: вуаля́ (ru) (vualjá), на (ru) (na)
• Spanish: he ahí, he aquí, helo ahí, helo aquí, vualá (es), voilà (es), voilá
• Turkish: işte (tr)

Anagrams

• Ivalo, Viola, oliva, viola, volia

French

Alternative forms

• v'là, voili, voilou, voili voilou (colloquial)

Etymology

Literally, “look there”. From vois (“see!, look!”), second-person singular imperative of voir (“to see, to look”) and là (“there”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /vwa.la/

• Audio:

  (file)

• Homophones: voila, voilât

Verb

voilà (defective)

1. there (it) is, there (it) comes
   • 1953, Samuel Beckett, En attendant Godot:

     Voilà l’homme tout entier, s’en prenant à sa chaussure alors que c’est son pied le coupable.

     There is man in his entirety, blaming his shoe when his foot is guilty.

2. here (it) is, here (it) comes

   Voilà le fromage.

   Here's the cheese.

   Voilà ce qu'on va faire ensuite.

   Here's what we are going to do next.

3. that is (introduces something one has said, whereas voici something one is about to

   Voilà ce que je lui ai demandé, et voici sa réponse : « ... »

   That's what I asked her and this is her answer: "..."

4. expresses something completed; used with pronouns, can serve as a loose copula

   Voilà qui est fait.

   That's done/That's over with.

   Me voilà fini! ― I'm done for!

5. expresses the unexpected or abrupt nature of an event

   Comme nous étions à la promenade, voilà qu’une ondée vint à tomber.

   As we were taking a walk, a huge rainshower suddenly began to fall.

Usage notes

• voilà is a defective verb. Its only conjugation is in the present indicative tense, even though it can appear in phrases that imply another tense.
• It can take direct object pronouns:

  La voilà! ― There she is/comes!

  Eh ben, nous voilà dans de beaux draps. ― Well, we're in trouble.

• Indirect object pronouns:

  Nous voilà encore plus de pain sur la planche.

  We've got even more work to do.

  (literally, “There is even more work to do for us.”)

  Et lui voilà pas arrivée toute sa famille.

  And then comes her whole family.

  (literally, “And there comes to her/for her her whole family.”)

  where lui is here merely used as an ethical dative

• As well as partitive and locative pronouns (en and y)

  “Tu vois les joueurs ?”, “Oui, en voilà un.” ― “Have you seen the players?”, “Yes, there comes one of them.”

  Nous y voilà ! ― At least, here we are! (used as an expression of relief)

• It can also occur in relative clauses:

  l'homme que voilà ― the man who is there/that man (right) there

• It is mainly used to introduce a slightly distant person or object, in contrast to voici which is used to designate a person or object near the speaker.
• In face-to-face conversations where both participants can see the subject of the conversation, voilà often supersedes voici (thus its additional definition: Here is).
• When voici and voilà are interchangeable, the former can be taken as of a higher register than the latter; voici is also altogether rarer in day-to-day conversation:
  • Voici la porte is a polite way to tell someone where the exit is whereas,
  • Voilà la porte could in some cases be considered rude and roughly translated as an invitation to leave.

Derived terms

• en veux-tu en voilà
• et voilà le travail
• revoilà
• voilà qui est fait
• voilà tout

Preposition

voilà

1. it has been, ago

   Synonyms: voici, il y a

   Voilà trois jours que je l'ai pas vue. ― It's been three days since I last saw her.

Related terms

• voici

Further reading

• “voilà”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.

Anagrams

• lovai, viola, volai

Indonesian

Etymology

Unadapted borrowing from French voilà (literally “look there”).

Interjection

voilà

1. voilà, there it is; see here; ta-da; presto; behold!

   Synonym: ini dia

Further reading

• “voilà” in Kamus Besar Bahasa Indonesia, Jakarta: Agency for Language Development and Cultivation – Ministry of Education, Culture, Research, and Technology of the Republic of Indonesia, 2016.

Italian

Interjection

voilà

1. voilà

Anagrams

• Viola, oliva, ovali, viola, volai

Polish

Etymology

Unadapted borrowing from French voilà.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /vwaˈla/
• Rhymes: -a
• Syllabification: voi‧là

Interjection

voilà

1. behold, voilà, woe!

Further reading

• voilà in Polish dictionaries at PWN

Spanish

Etymology

Unadapted borrowing from French voilà.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /bwaˈla/ [bwaˈla]
• Rhymes: -a

Interjection

voilà

1. Alternative form of vualá

Usage notes

According to Royal Spanish Academy (RAE) prescriptions, unadapted foreign words should be written in italics in a text printed in roman type, and vice versa, and in quotation marks in a manuscript text or when italics are not available. In practice, this RAE prescription is not always followed.