Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. An analgesic or medicinal ointment.
- n. Something that soothes or heals; a balm.
- n. Flattery or commendation.
- v. To soothe or heal with or as if with salve.
- v. To ease the distress or agitation of; assuage: salved my conscience by apologizing.
- v. To salvage.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. An adhesive composition or substance to be applied to wounds or sores; an ointment or cerate.
- n. Hence Help; remedy.
- To apply salve to; heal; cure.
- To help; remedy; redeem; atone for.
- An obsolete form of save.
- To save, as a ship or goods, from danger or destruction, as from shipwreck or fire: as, to salve a cargo.
- To save anything, as the cargo of a ship, from destruction.
- Hail.
- To salute or greet with the exclamation “Salve!”
Wiktionary
- n. An ointment, cream, or balm with soothing, healing, or calming effects.
- n. Any thing or action that soothes or heals.
- v. transitive To calm or assuage.
- v. To salvage.
- v. obsolete An astronomical term meaning to save (the appearances or the phenomena); to explain (a celestial phenomenon); to account for (the apparent motions of the celestial bodies).
- v. obsolete to resolve (a difficulty); to refute (an objection); to harmonize (an apparent contradiction).
- v. obsolete To explain away; to mitigate; to excuse
GNU Webster's 1913
- interj. Hail.
- v. obsolete To say “
Salve ” to; to greet; to salute. - n. An adhesive composition or substance to be applied to wounds or sores; a healing ointment.
- n. A soothing remedy or antidote.
- v. To heal by applications or medicaments; to cure by remedial treatment; to apply salve to.
- v. To heal; to remedy; to cure; to make good; to soothe, as with an ointment, especially by some device, trick, or quibble; to gloss over.
- v. Recent To save, as a ship or goods, from the perils of the sea.
WordNet 3.0
- n. semisolid preparation (usually containing a medicine) applied externally as a remedy or for soothing an irritation
- n. anything that remedies or heals or soothes
- v. save from ruin, destruction, or harm
- v. apply a salve to, usually for the purpose of healing
Etymologies
- From Latin salvare ("to save") (Wiktionary)
- Middle English, from Old English sealf.Back-formation from salvage or salvable. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“_Arnica salve, Urtica urens, tincture and salve_, and Dr. Reisig's _Homoeopathic Pain Extractor_ are the best specific remedies for _Burns_.”
“This salve is strong stuff, Page, but there is nothing else for it.”
“No long term salve was applied to the state's fiscal problems.”
Unions urge voters to take a pass on Ross Hunter for county executive over state budget
“And some parts of the credit markets showed skepticism about the Fed's move, too, despite hopes that it will provide a short-term salve to some of the margin-call issues that have hindered the normal functioning of the financial markets lately.”
“Whereon he finds in my name salve for the wounds of his own, and comes aboard, kissing my fist, with Spanish lies of holding himself fortunate that he had fallen into the hands of fortunate Drake, and much more, which he might have kept to cool his porridge.”
“I recently heard of Arnica salve from a former co-worker who is Mexican.”
“After a financial crisis there is no short-term salve to the economic pain.”
Telegraph.co.uk - Telegraph online, Daily Telegraph and Sunday Telegraph
“The new foothold in China is the longer-term salve for British Columbia, which faces a seemingly permanently reduced market in Japan and an extended, and slow, recovery in the United States.”
“LONDON, April 23 (Reuters) - Greece's request on Friday to activate European Union and International Monetary aid is no more than a short-term salve for problems that have prompted”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘salve’.
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Ecce Romani
When in Rome...
salve, ecce, omnis, puella, puer, cannis, equis, domus, quae, postquam, vestemque, suam and 106 more...
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comfort
comfort level, comfort zone, at ease, soothing, consoling, stilling, coziness, harbor, snugness, bien aise, genial, take a powder and 34 more...
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Greetings
Things I say to people!
hi, hello, how are you doing, top of the day to..., hola, hey, what are you doing, what's that stran..., get out of the ba..., you again, is your homework ..., where's my other ... and 31 more...
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bepetersen's list
Words that I think should be banned from the English language
spittle, supper, crusty, moist, engorged, crotch, sinew, salve, suckle, mauve, damp, squat and 34 more...
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salutes
hail, greet, toast, gesture, saluter, doff, gratulate, acclaim, halse, panegyric, salue, salve and 45 more...
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Just 'cause I like 'em, S
scrunch, solace, sabotage, saccade, sacerdotal, sacrilegious, sacristy, snappy, skew, steadfast, scowl, scorch and 781 more...
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Clarissa, Or, The History of a Young ...
These words are from Samuel Richardson's novel Clarissa, Or, The History of a Young Lady, 1747-48
adumbrate, virago, varlet, rencounter, akimbo, palliate, amanuensis, amok, equipage, cully, se'ennight, resentments and 560 more...
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schinders's Words
persiflage, preterition, quidnunc, finick, termagant, otiose, magniloquent, weltschmerz, schadenfreude, piehole, malevolent, susurrus and 132 more...
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colleen's words ii
sibilant, sundry, spindle, distaff, device, mortar, pestle, scythe, flail, thresh, frown, elementary and 495 more...
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theastic's Words
cellar, stalemate, wrought, opal, tyrant, squelch, squab, linen, tartan, paisley, scope, siren and 395 more...
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NTDW1
template, modal, sublingual, tandem, polycentric, septuagenarian, token, irrevocable, denotive, augural, aberrant, phlebotomy and 1188 more...
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Time for a new list!
abrupt, erupt, rupture, sync, appropinquity, heterochromia, homochromatic, monochromatic, willy nilly, nitty gritty, kowtow, wonton and 455 more...
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kmalladi's favorites
edification, penchant, ablution, extricate, frank, triumvirate, trifecta, egregious, hoi polloi, articulate, antediluvian, brusque and 291 more...
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stpeter's Words
abase, abasement, abashed, abdicate, aberrant, abeyance, abhor, abhorrent, abide, abject, ablation, abnegation and 3536 more...
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lanklenmot's Words
ineluctable, prelapsarian, bien pensant, prospero, preternatural, gratifying, iconoclast, cineast, persnickety, tumescent, galvanize, pap and 889 more...
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ifjuly's list
favorite words. some are made up injokes between me and my husband or family.
skein, zaftig, july, bed, orifice, aesthete, ink, parce-que, desormais, cake, pusillanimous, pulse and 531 more...
Tweets
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