Skip to main content
PlainSpell

somersault

UK /ˈsʌməˌsɒlt/noun, verb

somersault is a noun meaning “Starting on one's feet, an instance of rotating one's body 360 degrees while airborne or on the ground, with one's feet passing over one's head” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). It is spelled S-O-M-E-R-S-A-U-L-T and has 3 syllables, and it appears about once in every 3 million words in written English (wordfreq, 2021 data). The plural of somersault is somersaults.

What does somersault mean?

noun

  1. 1

    Starting on one's feet, an instance of rotating one's body 360 degrees while airborne or on the ground, with one's feet passing over one's head.

    Near-synonym: backflip

verb

  1. 1

    To perform a somersault.

    Near-synonym: backflip

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

How do you pronounce somersault?

  • UK /ˈsʌməˌsɒlt/
  • UK /ˈsʌməˌsɔːlt/
  • /ˈsʊməˌsɒlt/

Somersault has 3 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: LL-Q1860_(eng)-Vealhurl-somersault.wav, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).

Forms of somersault

  • somersaults plural, present, singular, he/she/it
  • somersaulting participle, present
  • somersaulted participle, past

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

How common is somersault?

Somersault appears about once in every 3 million words in written English, the 54,192nd 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).

Somersault in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese

LanguageWords
Frenchsalto, saut périlleux, galipette (the act of going head over heels)
GermanSalto, Überschlag, Kopsibolter, Purzelbaum (the act of going head over heels)
Portuguesesalto mortal, cambalhota (the act of going head over heels), dar um mortal (to perform somersault)
Spanishvoltereta, salto mortal, volatín (the act of going head over heels)

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 somersault come from?

From French sombresault (now obsolete, compare French sursaut, soubresaut), from Old Occitan sobresalt, from sobre- (“over, above”) + salt (“jump”), from Latin suprā (“over”) + saltus (“jump”). Doublet of soubresaut.

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).