salso

Forms

salso (feminine salsa, masculine plural salsi, feminine plural salse)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin salsus (“salted, salty”), the past participle of sallō (“to salt”), a verb formed on sāl (“salt”).^[2][3][4][1] The participle comes from an earlier *saldō, the final consonant of the stem being assimilated in the participle, as falsus goes with fallō and celsus with -cellō.^[1][5]

The feminine, used in Latin as a noun for a salt broth or dressing, gave salsa, French sauce, Old Occitan sausa, Catalan salsa, Spanish salsa and Portuguese salsa; the adjective survives in Engadine sos (“bitter”).^[6][7][8]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is in Bono Giamboni, before 1292, in the sense “containing salt, tasting of salt”: se ne debbe guardare d'acque salse e nitrose “one should beware of salty and nitrous waters”, which heat and dry the body.^[2][9] GRADIT dates the word to before 1320 and Zingarelli to 1282.^[4][10]

Semantic evolution

In Old Italian acqua salsa, onde salse and flutti salsi were ways of naming the sea.^[9] Boccaccio's Decameron shows a poor woman cleaning her pots with sand and acqua salsa, and an early commentator on Dante places Rome where the Tiber enters the sea e fassi salso “and becomes salt”.^[11][9]

From the 16th century the word was also a noun, “saltiness”, first in Ortensio Lando.^[2] In older medicine i salsi were the salty humours of the body, which Redi says a remedy will sweeten.^[11] In farming terreno salso is soil with so many soluble salts that most plants cannot grow in it.^[12][13] The figurative sense “salacious, biting” (lingua salsa) is uncommon, and Montale used salse correnti for sea currents.^[4][14][15] Wiktionary marks the adjective as rare; it is also the name of a river in Sicily.^[1]

Timeline

• Before 1292 – Bono Giamboni writes of acque salse.^[2][9]
• 1289 – The noun salsa “sauce” is recorded in Florence.^[2]
• 1554–1565 – Salsedine “saltiness” appears in Giovanni Battista Ramusio.^[2]
• Before 1560 – Ortensio Lando uses salso as a noun, “saltiness”.^[2]
• 1845 – Salsoiodico is coined for the waters of Castrocaro.^[2]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Naturally containing salt; saline, salty: le sorgenti salse della valle.^[4][12][16]
2. Of food or drink, salty;^[4][13] (archaic) too salty.^[4][13]
3. (agriculture) Of soil, holding so many soluble salts that most crops cannot grow in it.^[12][13]
4. (figurative, uncommon) Salacious, biting.^[4][14]
5. (literary) Of the sea, marine.^[15]

Noun

1. Salty taste or smell; salsedine, brine: Sulle labbra sentiva il salso del mare.^{[4][10][16][15]}

Word family

• salsedine
• salsiera
• salsoiodico
• salsezza
• salsume

Related words

• salsa
• sale
• salato
• Latin salsus

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h Cortelazzo, Manlio; Zolli, Paolo (1999), Dizionario etimologico della lingua italiana, 2nd ed. by Manlio Cortelazzo and Michele A. Cortelazzo, Bologna: Zanichelli
3. ^ Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
4. ^ a b c d e f g h De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
5. ^ Devoto, Giacomo (1968), Avviamento alla etimologia italiana: dizionario etimologico, 2nd ed., Firenze: Le Monnier
6. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
7. ^ Körting, Gustav (1907), Lateinisch-romanisches Wörterbuch: etymologisches Wörterbuch der romanischen Hauptsprachen, 3rd ed., Paderborn: Schöningh
8. ^ Prati, Angelico (1951), Vocabolario etimologico italiano, Milano: Garzanti
9. ^ a b c d Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca
10. ^ a b Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
11. ^ a b Tommaseo, Niccolò; Bellini, Bernardo (1861–1879), Dizionario della lingua italiana, 4 vols., Torino: UTET
12. ^ a b c Devoto, Giacomo; Oli, Gian Carlo; Serianni, Luca; Trifone, Maurizio (2026), Nuovo Devoto–Oli: il vocabolario dell'italiano contemporaneo, digital ed., Milano: Le Monnier
13. ^ a b c d Duro, Aldo (ed.) (1986–1994), Vocabolario della lingua italiana, Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana; online ed. treccani.it/vocabolario (2008 copy)
14. ^ a b Gabrielli, Aldo (2020), Grande dizionario italiano, digital ed., Milano: Hoepli
15. ^ a b c Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
16. ^ a b Vocabolario della lingua italiana Treccani (2011), Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana