/ · 1894 Brewer’s · S · Somerset or Somersault
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
A leap in which a person turns head over heels in the air and lights on his feet. (Latin, super saltus; French, soubresaut.) Sometimes a person will turn twice or thrice in the air before he touches the ground.
“First that could make love faces, or could do
The valter’s sombersalts.”
Donne: Poems, p. 300.
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Entry taken from Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, edited by the Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D. and revised in 1895.