safety [ME] Like safe and save [both ME], this ultimately comes from Latin salvus ‘uninjured, safe’, also the source of salvage [M17th] originally payment for saving a ship, *salver, and salvation [ME]. The proverb there is safety in numbers has echoes in the biblical Proverbs: ‘In the multitude of counsellors there is safety’. The first to use the modern phrasing was Jane Austen in her novel Emma, published in 1814: ‘She determined to call upon them and seek safety in numbers.’