[Sp.: see VOLANT a.] A two-wheeled covered carriage drawn by a horse ridden by a postilion (freq. with another horse attached at the side), used in Spanish countries.
Recent examples refer chiefly to Cuba.
1791. J. Townsend, Journ. Spain (1792), I. 105. You pay for a volanté with a good mule, attended by a guide, five shillings a day.
1817. Keatinge, Trav., I. 55. He is an author for the closet (a snug parlour we should say in England), and not for a volante.
1854. Bartlett, Mex. Boundary, I. i. 8. Towards evening, I went on shore with Lieut. Whipple, when we took a volante and drove out to the bishop’s palace, and the nieghboring public places of resort.
1878. Masque Poets, 185. Drawn (behind a jaunty Black-faced postilion) in a gay volante.
Hence Volantier, the owner or driver of a volante.
1791. J. Townsend, Journ. Spain, I. (1792), 77. I left Montpellier at five in the morning with a volantier of Barcelona.
