''salve'' ▫ᴱᴺ｜Definition｜1st｜20260708194133-00-⌔

salve - Wiktionary, the free dictionary

English

Noun

salve (countable and uncountable, plural salves)

• An ointment, cream, or balm with soothing, healing, or calming effects.
• Any remedy or action that soothes or heals.
  • ✤ Your forgiveness was a salve to my conscience and a balm to my wounded ego.
  • ✤ [Title:] Tame March PCE inflation no salve after downbeat Q1 US GDP report¹

Verb

salve (third-person singular simple present salves, present participle salving, simple past and past participle salved)

• (transitive) To calm or assuage.
  • ✤ She feels guilty for pampering him, and salves her conscience by bossily ordering him to go and fetch the clothes from the line[.]²
• To heal by applications or medicaments; to apply salve to; to anoint.
  • ✤ I do beseech your majesty […] salve the long-grown wounds of my intemperance.”³
• To heal; to remedy; to cure; to make good.
  • ✤ But Ebranck salved both their infamies/With noble deedes.⁴
  • ✤ What may we do, then, to salve this seeming inconsistence?⁵
• (dated) To salvage.
  • ✤ The interior woodwork was largely salved from the two cars, as well as the majority of the fittings and seats.⁶

Verb

salve (third-person singular simple present salves, present participle salving, simple past and past participle salved)

• (obsolete, astronomy) To save (the appearances or the phenomena); to explain (a celestial phenomenon); to account for (the apparent motions of the celestial bodies).
• (obsolete) To resolve (a difficulty); to refute (an objection); to harmonize (an apparent contradiction).
  • ✤ He which should hold it more rational to make the whole Universe move, and thereby to salve the Earths mobility, is more unreasonable…⁷
• (obsolete) To explain away; to mitigate; to excuse.

Interjection

salve

• Hail; a greeting.

Verb

salve (third-person singular simple present salves, present participle salving, simple past and past participle salved)

• (transitive) To say “salve” to; to greet; to salute.
  • ✤ By this that ſtraunger knight in preſence came,/And goodly ſalued them; who nought againe/Him anſwered, as courteſie became,/But with ſterne lookes, and ſtomachous diſdaine,/Gaue ſignes of grudge and diſcontentment vaine: […]⁸

Pronunciation

• (UK) enPR: sălv, säv, IPA: /sɑːv/, /sælv/
• (US) enPR: sălv, săv, IPA: /sæ(l)v/
• Audio (US): 🔊
• Rhymes: -ɑːv, -ælv, -æv

Etymology 1

From Middle English salve, from Old English sealf, from Proto-West Germanic ﹡salbu, from Proto-Germanic ﹡salbō, from Proto-Indo-European ﹡solp-éh₂, from ﹡selp- (“salve, ointment”).

Etymology 2

From Old English sealfian, from Proto-West Germanic ﹡salbōn, from Proto-Germanic ﹡salbōną, from ﹡salbō (whence salve (noun)).

Etymology 3

From Latin salvō (“to save”).

Etymology 4

From Latin salvē. The verb is from the interjection.

Printed 2026-07-08.

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Footnotes

1. 2025 April 30, “Tame March PCE inflation no salve after downbeat Q1 US GDP report”, in Reuters ‎${}^{[1]}$, archived from the original on 1 May 2025: ↩

2. 1985, Joan Morrison, Share House Blues, Boolarong Publications, page 26: ↩

3. c. 1597 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The First Part of Henry the Fourth, […]”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC,: ↩

4. 1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book II, Canto X”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC, stanza 21: ↩

5. 1643, J[ohn] M[ilton], The Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce: […], London: […] T[homas] P[aine] and M[atthew] S[immons] […], →OCLC: ↩

6. 1942 March, “Notes and News: Repairing Blitzed Underground Cars”, in Railway Magazine, page 90: ↩

7. 1661, Thomas Salusbury, transl., Galileo’s Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems: ↩

8. 1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book II, Canto VIII”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC, stanza 23, page 297: ↩