salver [LME] Early Spanish kings were afraid of being poisoned, so they employed servants to taste their food and drink before touching it themselves. The taster would put items that had been checked on a tray or salver for presenting to the monarch—anything on the tray was free from danger. Spanish salva ‘the sampling of food’ came from salvar ‘to make safe’ and goes back to Latin salvus ‘uninjured, safe’, the root also of *safety, *salute, and *save.