Etymology
Literally, “look there”. From vois (“see!, look!”), second-person singular imperative of voir (“to see, to look”) and là (“there”).
Verb
voilà (defective)
- there (it) is
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.
- here (it) is
Voilà le fromage.- Here's the cheese.
Voilà ce qu’on va faire ensuite.- Here's what we are going to do next.
- that is
Voilà ce que je lui ai demandé, et voici sa réponse : « ... »- That's what I asked her and this is her answer: "..."
- expresses something completed
Voilà qui est fait.- That's done/That's over with.
- 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.
- As a verb, it can take direct object pronouns:
- La voilà! ― There she is!
- 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).