salve

¹

[sav, sahv]

noun

1. a medicinal ointment for healing or relieving wounds and sores.

2. anything that soothes, mollifies, or relieves.

verb (used with object)

salved, salving 

1. to soothe with or as if with salve; assuage.

   to salve one's conscience.

   Synonyms: mollify, alleviate, ease

salve

²

[salv]

verb (used with or without object)

salved, salving 

1. to save from loss or destruction; to salvage.

salve

³

[sal-vee, sahl-wey]

interjection

1. hail!

salve

¹

/ sælv, sɑːv /

noun

1. an ointment for wounds, sores, etc

2. anything that heals or soothes

verb

1. to apply salve to (a wound, sore, etc)

2. to soothe, comfort, or appease

salve

²

/ sælv /

verb

1. a less common word for salvage

2. an archaic word for save 1

Word History and Origins

Origin of salve¹

First recorded before 900; Middle English noun salve, salwe, salf(e), Old English sealf, salf; cognate with German Salbe “ointment, salve,” Sanskrit sarpís “melted butter, fat”; verb derivative of the noun

Origin of salve²

First recorded in 1700–10; back formation from salvage

Origin of salve³

First recorded in 1400–50; late Middle English, from Latin salvē! literally, “be in good health!”; salute

Word History and Origins

Origin of salve¹

Old English sealf; related to Old High German salba, Greek elpos oil, Sanskrit sarpis lard

Origin of salve²

C18: from _salvage

Example Sentences

More than that, some are betting that AI and robotics will be the salve to our nation’s debt troubles.

Read more on The Wall Street Journal

For him, their beauty is a salve — an opportunity to abandon reality and cast himself in a role that doesn’t actually exist for him.

Read more on Los Angeles Times

The Henry Murray Stage upstairs at the Matrix Theatre has been transformed into an adolescent hideaway, where music and literature are the only salves for alienated brooding.

Read more on Los Angeles Times

His explosive row with President Donald Trump - and the very public airing of his dirty White House laundry - suggests Musk's changing priorities might not quite be the salve they had been hoping for.

Read more on BBC

Flanagan is strictly interested in what futility does to the human soul — and how it can be a salve, too.

Read more on Los Angeles Times

Related Words

• alleviate 
• assuage 
• mollify 
• pacify 
• unburden