Today's podictionary word is somersault . The somersaults I used to do on the floor and across the lawn are a pale imitation of the acrobatic tumbles to which this word has applied for 500 years.
For a short time some users of this word pronounced it with a B instead of an M , after the French word it comes from, but ultimately it should be supra-saltus from the Latin, meaning “above leap” or “jump over.” The “salt” part of somersault shows up in a number of English words like assault , assail and insult all of which basically boil down to meaning “to leap.” Another variety of this jumping meaning is also behind the expression “salty language,” meaning swearing. Back in the 1500s “salt” meant sexual desire. Compare that with the more recent expression to “jump one's bones.”
