salute [ME] Salute is from Latin salutare ‘greet, pay one’s respects to’, from salus, ‘health, welfare, greeting’ as greetings usually involve wishing someone good health. The same root gives us salutary [LME] originally ‘conducive to health’ and salubrious [M16th] ‘healthful’. Salvo [L16th] comes, via Italian, from the Roman greeting salve, from salutare, and *safety, *salver, and *save also go back to the same root.