Voilà!

I've always been fond of this pretty, little word, but I seldom use it in my own speech (maybe once every five or ten years), because it seems too triumphant.  This morning, however, after a long, numerical list of steps that some colleagues and I need to take, followed by a conclusion we wished to reach, I just blurted out "Voilà!" and felt good about it.

Etymology

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

Sometimes I use "q.e.d." in similar circumstances.

 

Selected readings

"Voilà!  Ear spellings" (10/23/07)

"Voilá: the movie" (4/28/05)