salad
salad
(sălʹəd) noun
1.
a. A dish consisting of green, leafy raw vegetables, often with radish, cucumber, or tomato, served with a dressing. b. The course of a meal consisting of this dish.
2. A cold dish of chopped fruit, meat, fish, eggs, or other food, usually prepared with a dressing, such as mayonnaise.
3. A green vegetable or herb used in salad, especially lettuce.
4. A varied mixture: "The Declaration of Independence was . . . a salad of illusions" (George Santayana).
noun
, attributive.
Often used to modify another noun: salad plates; salad makings.
[Middle English salade
, from Old French, possibly from Old Provençal salada, from Vulgar Latin *salāta from feminine past participle of salāre, to salt, from Latin sāl, salt.]
Word History:
The word salad may have come to us from Vulgar Latin, the chiefly unrecorded common speech of the ancient Romans, which is distinguished from standard literary, or Classical, Latin. The word takes its origin from the fact that salt was and is an important ingredient of salad dressings. Hence the Vulgar Latin verb salāre,"to salt," from Latin sāl,"salt," in the past participial form salāta,"having been salted," came to mean "salad." The Vulgar Latin word passed into languages descending from it, such as Portuguese (salada) and Old Provençal (salada). Old French may have borrowed its word salade from Old Provençal. Medieval Latin also carried on the Vulgar Latin word in the form salāta. As in the case of so many culinary delights, the English borrowed the word and probably the dish from the French. The Middle English word salade, from Old French salade and Medieval Latin salāta, is first recorded in a recipe book composed before 1399.