| The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language: Fourth Edition. 2000. |
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| somersault |
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| SYLLABICATION: | som·er·sault |
| PRONUNCIATION: |  s m  r-sôlt |
| VARIANT FORMS: | also sum·mer·sault |
| NOUN: | 1. An acrobatic stunt in which the body rolls forward or backward in a complete revolution with the knees bent and the feet coming over the head. Also called somerset. 2. A complete reversal, as of sympathies or opinions. also called regionally Regional tumbleset. | | INTRANSITIVE VERB: | Inflected forms: som·er·sault·ed, som·er·sault·ing, som·er·saults
To execute a somersault. | | ETYMOLOGY: | Obsolete French sombresault, variant of sobresault, from Old Provençal sobresaut : sobre-, above (from Latin supr ; see uper in Appendix I) + saut, leap (from Latin saltus, from past participle of sal re, to leap; see sel- in Appendix I).
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| The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition. Copyright © 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Published by the Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved. |
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