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salud

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Etymology and origin of the Spanish word salud

Confidence
Established
Formation
Inherited
First attested
c. 1140 Cantar de mio Cid More words from the 12th century
Inherited from
Latin salus
Ultimate origin
Proto-Indo-European *slH-u-
Etymology tree
inherited borrowed derived
Latin salūs
French salut
Italian salute
Spanish salud
From the same root
Latin salūtāre ← salūs
Latin salūtāris ← salūs
Latin salūtō ← salūs

Pronunciation

  • /saˈlud/, [saˈluð̞][1]

Forms

salud f (plural saludes)[1] Old Spanish wrote salut more often than salud;[2][3] Alfonso X's General Estoria also has saud.[2][3] Old Leonese had salude.[4]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin salūtem (“health; safety; greeting”), the accusative of the Latin noun.[5][6][7][1][8] The Latin noun is from the same root as salvus (“whole, safe”),[5][6] and de Vaan traces both to Proto-Italic *salu- (“whole, healthy”) and Proto-Indo-European *slH-u- (“whole”).[9] Wiktionary gives the root as *solh₂- (“whole, complete”).[1] A learned derivative is salute, a coin with the angelic salutation, recorded by Nebrija.[5]

The same Latin word is Portuguese saúde, Galician saúde, Asturian salú, Catalan salut, Old Occitan salut, French salut, Italian salute and Sardinian salude.[10][4][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

The Cantar de mio Cid (c. 1140, known from a 14th-century copy) has the plural saludes “greetings”: Minaya's men bring the army saludes de primos e de hermanos “greetings from cousins and brothers”.[11][12] Menéndez Pidal glosses the plural as wishes of good health, greetings, and news of an absent person.[12]

Semantic evolution

Berceo used the word for “salvation”.[5] Alfonso X's prose has the senses “health”, “well-being, the public good”, “the state of grace” and “eternal salvation”.[3] Letters and charters opened with the greeting salut et gracia.[11] Covarrubias defined it as the soundness and wholeness of the body.[13] Autoridades recorded that in the thieves' slang (germanía) salud meant “church”, after Juan Hidalgo's vocabulary.[14][15]

The plural saludes “greetings” went out of use in most of Spain, but it lives on in Upper Aragon and the Americas;[12] the DAMER records it in Mexico, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Colombia and Ecuador.[16] The Academy recorded ¡salud! as a poetic interjection in 1843, along with beber a la salud de alguno “to drink someone's health”.[17] In 1869 it became a familiar greeting.[18] Baralt objected in 1855 that the classical writers used salve in such greetings, not salud.[19] Today ¡salud! is also the usual toast and the response to a sneeze.[1][20]

Timeline

  • c. 1140 – the Cantar de mio Cid has saludes “greetings”.[11][5][6]
  • 1220–1250 – the derivative saludable appears.[6]
  • 1231 – salut et gracia opens a charter of Fernando III.[11]
  • 1250–1279 – Alfonso X's Lapidario uses it for bodily health.[3]
  • c. 1495 – Nebrija gives Latin salus.[21]
  • 1609 – Juan Hidalgo's slang vocabulary gives salud “church”.[15]
  • 1611 – Covarrubias defines it as the soundness of the body.[13]
  • 1843 – the Academy records ¡salud! and beber a la salud de alguno.[17]
  • 1884 – the Academy's dictionary gives the etymology and the phrase curarse en salud.[22]

Meanings

Noun

  1. health: the state of a living organism that carries out all its functions normally.[7][1]
  2. The physical and mental condition of an organism at a given moment: Mi abuela anda mal de salud.[7][23]
  3. (dated) The freedom or well-being of the public or of a person.[7]
  4. (Christianity) The state of grace.[7]
  5. (Christianity) Salvation.[7]
  6. (thieves' slang) The immunity of someone who takes sanctuary.[7]
  7. (in the plural, rare) Courteous acts and expressions;[16] (Mexico, Central America, Colombia, Ecuador) greetings: Dale saludes a tu madre.[7][16]

Interjection

  1. A greeting, or a wish of well-being.[7]
  2. cheers: the usual toast.[1][20]
  3. bless you: said to someone who has sneezed.[1][20]

Word family

  • saludable

Usage notes

Curarse en salud means to take precautions against a harm before it threatens.[22][23] Salud pública is the set of minimum health conditions of a population that the authorities must guarantee.[7]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b Diccionario del Español Medieval electrónico (DEMel), data publication 2026 (CC BY-SA), Universität Rostock, p. s.v. salud
  3. ^ a b c d 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. salud
  4. ^ a b García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. 5863
  5. ^ a b c d e Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 5, 142
  6. ^ a b c d Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. salud
  7. ^ a b c d e f g h i j 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. salud
  8. ^ Gómez de Silva, Guido (1988), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua española, México: Fondo de Cultura Económica / El Colegio de México, p. s.v. salud
  9. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
  10. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 7555
  11. ^ a b c d Real Academia Española (2013–), Corpus del Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (CDH), version 3.1, https://apps.rae.es/CNDHE, p. s.v. salud
  12. ^ a b c Menéndez Pidal, Ramón (1908–1911), Cantar de Mio Cid: texto, gramática y vocabulario, 3 vols., Madrid: Bailly-Baillière, p. 428
  13. ^ 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
  14. ^ Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 6, 31
  15. ^ a b Hidalgo, Juan (1609), Romances de germanía de varios autores, con el vocabulario por la orden del a.b.c. para declaración de sus términos y lengua, Barcelona: Sebastián de Cormellas (ed. Madrid 1779), p. 198
  16. ^ a b c Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2010), Diccionario de americanismos, Lima: Santillana; online at https://www.asale.org/damer, p. s.v. salud
  17. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1843), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 9th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Francisco María Fernández, p. 652
  18. ^ Real Academia Española (1869), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 11th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de Don Manuel Rivadeneyra, p. 698
  19. ^ Baralt, Rafael María (1855), Diccionario de galicismos, Madrid: Imprenta de J. Cruzado, p. 624
  20. ^ a b c Battaner Arias, Paz (dir.) (2017), Diccionario general de la lengua española VOX, Barcelona: Larousse Editorial, p. s.v. salud
  21. ^ Nebrija, Antonio de (1513), Vocabulario español-latino, Salamanca, ed. Marina Vidal Díez (2007), Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes, p. 413
  22. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1884), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 12th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Gregorio Hernando (the first Academy edition with etymologies), p. 955
  23. ^ a b Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. salud

Related etymologies

Cite this entry

“Salud.” Etymologically, 7 Nov. 2026, etymologically.com/es/salud. Accessed 7 Nov. 2026.

Last edited on . ·