salutare

Salute comes from Latin salutare, a verb meaning 'to greet, to wish health to, to pay respects to,' derived from salus (genitive salutis), meaning 'health, safety, welfare, wellbeing.' Salus was one of the most important concepts in Roman life: salus publica (public health, the welfare of the state) was a fundamental obligation of Roman government, and the goddess Salus was depicted on Roman coins holding a scepter and feeding a serpent from a dish — the serpent being the ancient symbol of medicine and healing. To salutare someone was literally to wish them salus — to say, in effect, 'may you be well, may you be safe, may you prosper.' The word encoded both the social act of greeting and the genuine wish for the other person's welfare that was supposed to accompany it.

The Roman military salute — raising the open right hand to the forehead — is well documented and became one of the most recognized symbolic gestures in Western military culture. Whether the modern military salute descends directly from the Roman gesture is debated among historians: there are continuity arguments through Byzantine and medieval traditions, and discontinuity arguments suggesting the modern form developed independently in early modern European armies. What is not debated is that salutare was the word Roman soldiers used when they hailed their commanders and emperors. The gladiatorial arena salute — 'Ave, Caesar, morituri te salutant' ('Hail, Caesar, those who are about to die salute you') — is one of the most famous Latin sentences ever recorded, though its historical accuracy is itself uncertain. The wish for health in the face of death is the salute's full etymological weight.

The word entered English in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries through French salut, initially meaning a greeting or gesture of respect, then developing its specific military sense. The military salute — the physical gesture — became standard in European armies by the seventeenth century, and the word salute attached firmly to this gesture rather than to the general greeting sense. In English, 'salute' now primarily means the military gesture, while the general greeting sense survives in 'salutation' (a formal greeting) and in the exclamatory use ('I salute you!' meaning 'I respect and honor you'). The health-wish at the word's core has become invisible in everyday use.

The connection between salute and salus also runs through words less obviously related: 'safe' comes from Latin salvus ('unharmed, healthy'), which shares the sal- root with salus. 'Salvation' — the theological concept of rescue from spiritual harm — comes from the same root through salvar and salvatio. The Roman general wishing his soldiers salus and the Christian preacher promising salutio are using different words from the same family, both concerned with the preservation of wellbeing against threat. The military greeting and the religious promise of rescue are linguistic cousins, both built on the Latin word for health that was considered the most fundamental of all goods.