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''salvo'' ▫ᴱᴺ Entries

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''salvo'' ▫ᴱᴺ｜Definition｜1st｜20260320113731-00-⌔

salvo - Wiktionary, the free dictionary

English

Noun

salvo (plural salvos or salvoes)

  • An exception; a reservation; an excuse.
    • ✤ They admit […] salvos, cautions, and reservations.1

Noun

salvo (plural salvos or salvoes)

  • (military) A concentrated fire from pieces of artillery, as in endeavoring to make a break in a fortification; a volley.
  • A salute paid by a simultaneous, or nearly simultaneous, firing of a number of cannon.
    • ✤ “Regard not that, my brother,” answered Magdalen Græme; “the first successors of Saint Peter himself, were elected not in sunshine but in tempests—not in the halls of the Vatican, but in the subterranean vaults and dungeons of Heathen Rome—they were not gratulated with shouts and salvos of cannon-shot and of musquetry, and the display of artificial fire—no, my brother—but by the hoarse summons of Lictors and Prætors, who came to drag the Fathers of the Church to martyrdom. […] ”2
  • (by extension) Any volley, as in an argument or debate.
    • ✤ It was an impressive opening salvo from the Baggies, especially for a side that have made a poor beginning to what has been an admittedly tough start to their campaign.3
    • ✤ Together, Johnson’s plans mean that the clashes in parliament and the Supreme Court may be only the opening salvos in what promises to be the biggest constitutional storm in centuries.4
  • The combined cheers of a crowd.

Verb

salvo (third-person singular simple present salvos, present participle salvoing, simple past and past participle salvoed)

  • (ambitransitive) To discharge weapons in a salvo.

Pronunciation

  • (Received Pronunciation) enPR: sălʹvō, IPA: /ˈsælvəʊ/
  • (General American) enPR: sălʹvō, IPA: /ˈsælvoʊ/
  • Audio (US): 🔊

Etymology 1

From Latin salvo, ablative of salvus, the past participle of salvāre (“to save, to reserve”), either from salvo jure (“the right being reserved”), or from salvo errore et omissone (“reserving error and omission”).

Etymology 2

An alteration from 1719 of salva (“simultaneous discharge of guns”) (1591) from Latin salva (“salute, volley”) (compare French salve, also from Italian), from Latin salve (“hail”), the usual Roman greeting, imperative of salvere (“to be in good health”).

Printed 2026-06-28.

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Footnotes

  1. 1649, Charles I of England (attributed), Eikon Basilike ↩

  2. 1820, [Walter Scott], chapter XIII, in The Abbot. […], volume I, Edinburgh: […] [James Ballantyne & Co.] for Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, […]; and for Archibald Constable and Company, and John Ballantyne, […], →OCLC, page 276: ↩

  3. 2011 October 1, Phil Dawkes, “Sunderland 2 - 2 West Brom”, in BBC Sport ‎: ↩

  4. 2019 October 6, Tim Shipman, Caroline Wheeler, “‘Sack me if you dare,’ Johnson will tell Queen”, in The Sunday Times, number 10,178, page 1: ↩

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