insult, exult, salient, resiliency

(Latin origins of words in English characterized by "jumping, leaping", or "springing forward")


There's More to Leaping and Jumping than Most People Realize

For much more information regarding "leaping" or "jumping" words, go to this other unit of sali, salt- elements to see many more examples.

When someone has been "jumped on" as is figuratively used sometimes, he or she probably feels insulted. Well, that person has the best classical authority for feeling that way because that is what the word insultare means; that is, "to jump on" while resultare means "to spring back" and the result of an action is that which "comes back". To exult is "to leap out" or "to leap up", a vivid way of expressing "a strong feeling".

The original element from which all of those words have come is satire, "to leap". Sometimes we hear the expression "salient features" or "salient points", meaning certain features or points that "leap up to attract attention". Resiliency is the power of "springing back" or "recovering".

An unusual word that is a member of this family unit is saltare, which means to leap often or continuously; that is, "to dance". If you would like to be more sophisticated, instead of using the word "dance", you could say that you were participating in a "saltatorial-social activity".

—Compiled from information located in
Word Ancestry; by Willis A. Ellis; American Classical League;
Miami University, Oxford, Ohio; 1939; page 7.

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