salvo
/ˈsælvoʊ/noun, verb
salvo is a noun meaning “An exception; a reservation; an excuse” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). It is spelled S-A-L-V-O and has 2 syllables, and it appears about once in every 1 million words in written English (wordfreq, 2021 data). The plural of salvo is salvos or salvoes.
What does salvo mean?
noun
- 1
An exception; a reservation; an excuse.
- 2
A concentrated fire from pieces of artillery, as in endeavoring to make a break in a fortification; a volley.
- 3
A salute paid by a simultaneous, or nearly simultaneous, firing of a number of cannon.
- 4
Any volley, as in an argument or debate.
- 5
The combined cheers of a crowd.
verb
- 1
To discharge weapons in a salvo.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How do you pronounce salvo?
- UK /ˈsælvəʊ/
- US /ˈsælvoʊ/
Salvo has 2 syllables (counted from its American pronunciation in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary).
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: En-us-salvo.ogg, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
Forms of salvo
- salvos plural, present, singular, he/she/it
- salvoes plural
- salvoing participle, present
- salvoed participle, past
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How common is salvo?
Salvo appears about once in every 1 million words in written English, the 34,504th most frequent word form in the list.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
Salvo in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
In the sense concentrated fire from pieces of artillery:
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.
Where does salvo come from?
From Latin salvo, ablative of salvus, the past participle of salvāre (“to save, to reserve”), either from salvo jure (“the right being reserved”), or from salvo errore et omissone (“reserving error and omission”).
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).