A salver is a tray for serving refreshments; sage is an herb used to season food; a safe is a storage-place for valuables; and a salve is an ointment for healing burns. These items seem to have little in common, but their names derive from the same source, the Latin salvus, meaning uninjured or healthy. The tray known as the salver first began to develop its name when the Latin salvus evolved into the Spanish salvar, meaning to save; somewhat later, this Spanish word developed a specialized meaning of to save a leader by pre-tasting the food, since it used to be common to assassinate monarchs by poisoning their victuals. Once the royal food had been pre-tasted by an underling, it was then\u2014assuming that the pre-taster’s eyes had not rolled into the back of his head\u2014placed on a special tray to indicate that the monarch could safely partake of it at his or her leisure. This “safe tray” came to be known in Spanish as the salva, which entered English in the late seventeenth century as salver. (The dining room sideboard once known as the credenza\u2014from the Medieval Latin credentia, meaning trusting\u2014acquired its name in the fifteenth century for similar reasons.) The herb known as sage also developed its name from the Latin salvus: because the plant was traditionally seen as an herb that restored health, the Romans named it salvia, which entered French as sauge, giving rise to the English sage in the early fourteenth century. The word salve likewise developed from salvus because a salve restores health, while the metal boxes known as safes\u2014or as they were called until the seventeenth century, saves\u2014acquired their name because they protect their valuable contents from harm.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A salver is a tray for serving refreshments; sage is an herb used to season food; a safe is a storage-place for valuables; and a salve is an ointment for healing burns. These items seem to have little in common, but their names derive from the same source, the Latin salvus, meaning uninjured or healthy. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-41009","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-s"],"yoast_head":"\n