• saltimbocca •
Pronunciation: sawl-tim-bo-kê (US), sæl-tim-bah-kê • Hear it!
Part of Speech: Noun
Meaning: An Italian dish usually of veal, thinly sliced and rolled in prosciutto and sage leaves.
Notes: Today's word is as delicious as the food it refers to. It is an Italian word and, in English, a lexical orphan.
In Play: We don't find much play in this word because its meaning is so narrowly defined: "The restaurant has a half dozen veal items on the menu, but saltimbocca alla Romana, with prosciutto, butter, herbs, and marsala, is their specialty." It refers only to this delicious food: "I was wary of the menu at the new Italian restaurant, but I eventually moved on from roast chicken to more adventurous meals like saltimbocca."
Word History: Today's Good Word was borrowed from Italian, where it was created by smushing together the phrase salt(a) "(it) jumps" + in "into" + bocca "(the) mouth". Salta came from Latin salire "to jump", by confusion with saltare "to dance". Both Latin words were inherited from PIE sel-/sol- "to spring, leap". Sel-/sol- also went into the making of Greek hallesthai "to spring, jump", Lithuanian šuolis "a leap, jump", Latin salmo, salmonis "salmon", and Welsh sathru "to trample, tread". Bocca was inherited from Latin bucca "cheek". The origin of this word is problematic. The best guess is that it is related to beccus "beak", borrowed from Proto-Celtic bekkos "hook, curved stick", from the same source as English peg. However, the semantic adventures beyond this point are not worth the travel. (Now, a note of gratitude to George Kovac, a great storyteller in the Agora and contributor of many, many stunning Good Words like today's.)
