1575 G. Turberville Bk. Faulconrie 198 They [sc. hawks] flee vp aloft vpon pleasure, which with us Falconers is called soring.

c1630 in Roxburghe Ballads (1888) VI. 455 Holow! my Fancie, holow!..stay at home with me! leave off thy lofty soaring.

1651 W. Davenant Gondibert iii. v. 26 Thy love's high soaring cannot be a crime.

1699 A. Boyer Royal Dict. at Essor Flight, or soaring up.

1856 R. W. Emerson Eng. Traits xiv. 236 The union of Saxon precision and oriental soaring, of which Shakspeare is the perfect example.

1880 R. Jefferies Round about Great Estate 132 This soaring and wheeling [of jackdaws] is evidently done for recreation.

1864 Leisure Hour 21 May 328/1 The sciences of aerostation and meteorology must progress together as wedded sciences... The effect of a mutual reaction upon each other we are unable to conjecture, further than to anticipate..more than probable extension of the properties and simple soaring power of the balloon.]

1893 Amer. Engineer & Railroad Jrnl. 67 396/1 It seems now reasonably possible for designers of soaring machines..to experiment with their apparatus without further search for some hidden secret.

1894 O. Chanute Progress in Flying Machines p. iv Aeroplanes for soaring flight.

1896 O. Chanute Diary 23 June in Wright Papers (1953) I. 641 It is a gliding but not a soaring mach[in]e and little is to be expected from it.

1903 W. Wright in Jrnl. Western Soc. Engineers 8 401 In principle Soaring is exactly equivalent to gliding, the practical difference being that in one case the wind moves with an upward trend against a motionless surface, while in the other the surface moves with a downward trend against motionless air.

1931 V. W. Pagé Henley's ABC Gliding & Sailflying p. vii Soaring machines or sailplanes are usually monoplanes with a higher aspect ratio than found in the training planes.

1931 P. White & M. White Gliding & Soaring xviii. 145 Soaring differs from gliding in that the ship, instead of losing altitude, either pursues a level course or gains height.

1952 F. Green ABC of Gliding 90 Ridge soaring depends basically on the wind.

1958 D. Piggott Gliding xviii. 118 Many glider pilots become anxious to start cross-country flying as soon as they have made one or two soaring flights.

1974 Sci. Amer. Aug. 14/2 His memberships..reflect several of his outside interests, which he lists as ‘camping, canoeing, gliding and soaring and gardening’.

1979 Yale Alumni Mag. Apr. (Suppl.) cn 20/1 He is fully recovered..and still believes that soaring is a great sport.

1687 tr. Sallust (1692) 71 They who being arriv'd to large Command, live in the soaring height of Greatness.

1818 Ld. Byron Childe Harold: Canto IV lxxiii. 39 I have seen the soaring Jungfrau rear Her never-trodden snow.

1849 J. Ruskin Seven Lamps Archit. iii. 92 The soaring arches and kingly crowning of the gates of Abbeville.

1849 E. A. Freeman Hist. Archit. 6 The solemn massiveness of the Romanesque Cathedral, the soaring majesty of its Gothic successor.

1884 Cent. Mag. Mar. 682/1 For them no soaring nave and dimly lighted clearstory.