Other forms: soars, soared, soaring
To soar is to rise high and keep rising, smoothly and without effort. A hawk soars on warm air for an hour without beating its wings once; a cathedral roof soars over your head until you have to lean back to see it.
Numbers soar as well, and that is where you will meet the word most: prices soar, temperatures soar, unemployment soars. It takes no object — things soar, and you cannot soar something. Choosing it over rise is a choice about tone, since soar carries either admiration or alarm: a report says costs rose, a headline says costs soared. Music and voices soar too. And it is a homophone trap — soar goes up, a sore is what hurts, and a saw cuts wood.
1verbsoarTo rise quickly to a much higher level.
“House prices soared after the new railway opened.”
2verbflyTo fly high in the air, especially without flapping.
“Three eagles soared over the valley all morning.”
3verbimpressivelyTo rise high and impressively in shape.
“The stone tower soars above the rooftops.”
4verbvoiceOf a voice or a piece of music — to rise and carry.
“Her voice soared over the whole hall.”
SOAR → a SAW
A silver saw slips off the roof of the house. Instead of falling into the garden it climbs — over the trees, over the birds, turning slowly in the sun, still going up.
hooks ontosaw
From Old French essorer, and behind it a Vulgar Latin exaurare — to rise out into the air, from ex, out, and aura, a breeze. To soar is to be put out into the wind. Aura and exhale are its relatives, all of them made of moving air.
Proto-Indo-European
*h₂ews-
Ancient Greek
αὔρα — breath
Latin
ex — out
Vulgar Latin
*exaurare — to rise into the air
Old French
essorer — to fly up, soar
Middle English
soren
English, today
soar
Built from
From Middle English soren, from Old French essorer (“to fly up, soar”), from Vulgar Latin exaurare (“to rise into the air”), from Latin ex (“out”) + aura (“the air, a breeze”), from Ancient Greek αὔρα (“breath”). Compare aura, and exhale.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA