saltar

Forms

saltar (first-person singular present salto, first-person singular preterite salté, past participle saltado)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Old Spanish saltar, inherited from Latin saltāre (“to dance; to hop”).^[2][3][1] The Latin verb meant mainly “to dance” and only sometimes “to hop, frisk”; it is the intensive or frequentative of saliō (“to jump, leap”).^[2][3][1] Bénaben notes that the Latin verb meant “to jump” in Late Latin.^[4]

Old Spanish also had sotar (“to dance”), with the /l/ vocalised, already in the Glosas Silenses, and the noun sota (“dance”).^[5][6] García de Diego relates Aragonese jotar (“to dance”) and jota to them.^[5][6] Wiktionary calls this form a rare regional doublet.^[1] The same Latin verb is Portuguese saltar, Catalan saltar, Occitan sautar, French sauter and Italian saltare.^[6][5]

The origin of the simple verb is uncertain: LIV connects it with Ancient Greek ἅλλομαι (hállomai, “to leap”) and a root Proto-Indo-European *sel-, but such a form would regularly have given a Latin stem in ⟨sol-⟩.^[1] De Vaan lists the verb for “to dance” among its derivatives.^[7]

Earliest recorded meaning

The CDH's first hit is in La fazienda de Ultra Mar (c. 1200, in a 13th-century copy): David vino saltando delant el arca “came leaping before the Ark”.^[8][9] Corominas dates the word 1220–1250.^[2]

Semantic evolution

Alfonso X's prose uses saltar for jumping up, for jumping down from a height, for a thing flung violently, and for a cleric skipping a grade of holy orders.^[10] Covarrubias defines it as passing from one place to another without going step by step, and gives the proverb más vale salto de mata que ruego de buenos “better a leap from the bush than the pleas of good men”.^[11] Autoridades adds a thing that breaks under tension, like a string.^[12]

The transitive uses, “to jump over” and “to skip” a line or a meal, and the pronominal saltarse “to break (a rule)”, are modern.^[3][1] Venezuela, Bolivia and the River Plate use saltar for frying food quickly over a high flame, the sense of French sauter.^[13][1] In Tabasco and nearby regions it means to go ashore, as saltar en tierra already did in the 16th-century Americas.^[14][15]

Timeline

• c. 1200 – first record, in La fazienda de Ultra Mar (in a 13th-century copy).^[8]
• 1220–1250 – Corominas's first record.^[2]
• 1250–1300 – Alfonso X's prose uses it for a hawk leaping from its perch.^[10]
• 1335 – the derivative saltear, originally “to make a sudden leap (on someone)”.^[2]
• c. 1495 – Nebrija translates it with Latin salio.^[16][17]
• 1519 – first record in the Americas, in Puerto Rico: saltar en la dicha ysla “land on the said island”.^[15]
• 1611 – Covarrubias records the proverb más vale salto de mata que ruego de buenos.^[11]
• 1884 – the Academy gives the etymology from Latin saltare.^[18]

Meanings

Verb

1. (intransitive) To jump, leap: El perro saltó al sofá.^[3][1]
2. (intransitive) To jump down from a height: saltar desde el muro.^[3]
3. (intransitive) To pounce on someone or something.^[3][19]
4. (intransitive) Of a thing, to fly off, come loose or burst; to explode; of a liquid, to spurt up.^[3]
5. (transitive) To jump over: saltar una valla.^[3]
6. (transitive, also reflexive) To skip or miss part of a text, a meal or a turn.^[3][1]
7. (reflexive) To break or ignore a rule: saltarse un semáforo.^[1]
8. (transitive) Of a male animal, to cover the female.^[3]
9. (transitive, nautical) To slacken a rope slightly.^[3]
10. (transitive, Venezuela, Bolivia, River Plate) To sauté.^[13][1]

Word family

• salto
• saltante
• saltarín
• saltón
• saltear
• resaltar
• sobresaltar
• saltamontes

Related words

• salir
• asaltar
• insultar
• exultar

Usage notes

Set phrases include saltar a la comba “to skip rope” and saltarse algo a la torera “to flout something”.^[1][3]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. saltar
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Real Academia Española; Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2014–), Diccionario de la lengua española, 23rd ed., online version 23.8, https://dle.rae.es, p. s.v. saltar
4. ^ Bénaben, Michel (2000), Dictionnaire étymologique de l'espagnol, Paris: Ellipses, p. s.v. saltar
5. ^ a b c García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. s.v. saltare
6. ^ a b c Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. s.v. saltare
7. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
8. ^ a b Real Academia Española (2013–), Corpus del Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (CDH), version 3.1, https://apps.rae.es/CNDHE, p. s.v. saltar
9. ^ Diccionario del Español Medieval electrónico (DEMel), data publication 2026 (CC BY-SA), Universität Rostock, p. s.v. saltar
10. ^ a b Kasten, Lloyd A.; Nitti, John J.; Gago Jover, Francisco (2002–), Diccionario de la prosa castellana del Rey Alfonso X, New York: Hispanic Seminary of Medieval Studies (electronic edition 2024), p. s.v. saltar
11. ^ a b Covarrubias Orozco, Sebastián de (1611), Tesoro de la lengua castellana o española, Madrid: Luis Sánchez (Biblioteca Wordkers transcription, CC BY 4.0), p. 1281
12. ^ Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 6, 29
13. ^ a b Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2010), Diccionario de americanismos, Lima: Santillana; online at https://www.asale.org/damer, p. s.v. saltar
14. ^ Santamaría, Francisco J. (1959), Diccionario de mejicanismos, México: Porrúa, p. 957
15. ^ a b Boyd-Bowman, Peter (2003), Léxico hispanoamericano 1493–1993, ed. Ray Harris-Northall and John J. Nitti, New York: Hispanic Seminary of Medieval Studies, p. s.v. saltar
16. ^ Nebrija, Antonio de (c. 1495), Vocabulario español-latino, Salamanca (facsimile, Madrid: Real Academia Española 1951), p. 183
17. ^ Nebrija, Antonio de (1513), Vocabulario español-latino, Salamanca, ed. Marina Vidal Díez (2007), Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes, p. 413
18. ^ Real Academia Española (1884), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 12th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Gregorio Hernando (the first Academy edition with etymologies), p. 954
19. ^ Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. saltar