English
salad
Salad comes from Middle English salade, from Old French salade, from Italian salada, from Vulgar Latin *salāta, from Latin sal ‘salt’, ultimately from PIE *sḗh₂l.
- Proto-Indo-Europeanc. 4500–2500 BCE*sḗh₂l1‘salt’reconstructed
- Proto-Italicc. 1500–700 BCE*sāls1‘salt’reconstructed
- Latinc. 75 BCE–200 CEsal2‘salt’
- Latinc. 75 BCE–200 CEsaliō2‘to salt’
- Vulgar Latinc. 100–700 CE*salāre2‘to salt’reconstructed
- Vulgar Latinc. 100–700 CE*salāta2reconstructed
- Italianc. 1300–presentsalada2
- Old Frenchc. 842–1400salade2
- Middle Englishc. 1150–1500salade2
- Englishearliest quotation c. 1604–1605salad2
attested reconstructed ? uncertain or disputed deepest recorded ancestor
- 1 Wiktionary, Latin sal
- 2 Wiktionary, English salad
- Earliest quotation in Wiktionary’s entry: c. 1604–1605, William Shakespeare, All’s Well, that Ends Well: “Lafeu. ’Twas a good lady, ’twas a good lady:…”.
Lineage
- Proto-Indo-Europeanc. 4500–2500 BCE*sḗh₂lWiktionary, Latin sal‘salt’reconstructed
- Proto-Italicc. 1500–700 BCE*sālsWiktionary, Latin sal‘salt’reconstructed
- Latinc. 75 BCE–200 CEsalWiktionary, English salad‘salt’
- Latinc. 75 BCE–200 CEsaliōWiktionary, English salad‘to salt’
- Vulgar Latinc. 100–700 CE*salāreWiktionary, English salad‘to salt’reconstructed
- Vulgar Latinc. 100–700 CE*salātaWiktionary, English saladreconstructed
- Italianc. 1300–presentsaladaWiktionary, English salad
- Old Frenchc. 842–1400saladeWiktionary, English salad
- Middle Englishc. 1150–1500saladeWiktionary, English salad
- Englishearliest quotation c. 1604–1605saladWiktionary, English salad. Earliest quotation in Wiktionary’s entry: c. 1604–1605, William Shakespeare, All’s Well, that Ends Well: “Lafeu. ’Twas a good lady, ’twas a good lady:…”
The story
Vegetables were seasoned with brine or salty oil-and-vinegar dressings during Roman times.
Word family
English words that share an ancestor with salad, grouped by the ancestor they share, most familiar first.
through Proto-Indo-European *sḗh₂l ‘salt’
through Latin sal ‘salt’
79 more relatives in the full family tree
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Today it means
noun A food consisting principally of raw vegetables (especially greens, e.g. lettuce), other savoury ingredients (typically cooked), fruit, or confectionary; often involving two or more such ingredients mixed together, with larger items cut or torn into small pieces, and usually with a dressing or binding; usually served cold or at room temperature, as a dish or savoury sandwich filling.
Sources
Sources: Wiktionary, “salad”; the older steps come from the Wiktionary entry for Latin sal. By Wiktionary contributors, CC BY-SA 4.0, via kaikki.org (dump of Oct 3 2026); text adapted and restructured. Language periods are conventional ranges, not dates for this word. License.
Etymograph / Proto-Indo-European *sḗh₂l / salad