A glossary of Tudor and Stuart words, especially from the dramatists

by Walter W. Skeat

sale, a willow; used by Spenser to signify a wicker basket made of willow-twigs for catching fish. Spenser, Shep. Kal., Dec., 81. See EDD. (s.v. Seal, sb.³). OE. sealh, a willow.

sale, a hall, large chamber. Morte Arthur, bk. xvii, ch. 16 (p. 713); The World and the Child, l. 12, in Hazlitt’s Dodsley, i. 243. F. salle (sale), a hall (Cotgr.).

saliant, sportive, lively. Fletcher, The Chances, iv. 3 (Petruccio). From the heraldic use, as ‘lion saliant’. Anglo-F. saillant, pres. pt. of sailler, to leap (Ch. Rol. 2469).

saliaunce, assault, onslaught, Spenser, F. Q. ii. 1. 29. Anglo-F. assaillir, to attack (Ch. Rol. 2564); saillir (Wace, Rom. de Rou, 2595).

sallet, a light head-piece. 2 Hen. VI, iv. 10. 13; Thersites, 55 (ed. Pollard). Often used with a quibble referring to sallet, a form of salad; as in Tusser, Husbandry, § 40. 1. O. Prov. salada, sorte de casque (Levy), F. salade, ‘a salade, helmet, head-piece’ (Cotgr.), Ital. celata, ‘a morion, a casket, an helmet’ (Florio). See Nares.

Salmon, Salomon, the sacrament or oath of the beggars; ‘Salomon, a alter or masse’, Harman, Caveat, 83; ‘A part too of our salmon’, B. Jonson, Gipsies Metam. (2 Gipsy); ‘By the Salomon’, Middleton, Roaring Girl, v. 1 (Trapdoor); ‘By Salmon’, Brome, Jovial Crew (NED.).

salpa, a kind of stock-fish. Middleton, Game at Chess, v. 3. 11. L. salpa (Pliny).

salt. A salt-cellar was usually placed near the middle of a long table, to divide the company according to their social rank; those of inferior distinction being placed below the salt. B. Jonson, Cynthia’s Revels, ii. 1 (Mercury). Above the salt, Massinger, Unnat. Combat, iii. 1 (Steward).

salt, a leap, esp. one made by a horse. Webster, White Devil (Lodovico), ed. Dyce, p. 34; B. Jonson, Devil an Ass, ii. 2 (Wittipol). L. saltus, a leap.

saltimbanco, a mountebank, a quack. Sir T. Browne, Vulgar Errors, bk. i, c. 3, § 11; saltinbancho, Butler, Hud. ii. 3. 1007. Ital. saltimbanco, a mountebank; from saltare in banco, to mount upon a bench; ‘Salta in banco, as Monta in banco; montáre in bánco, to play the mountebank’ (Florio). Span. ‘Sálta en banco, a mountebank’ (Stevens). See Stanford.