salve

Noun

salve (countable and uncountable, plural salves)

1. An ointment, cream, or balm with soothing, healing, or calming effects.
2. Any remedy or action that soothes or heals.
   • Your forgiveness was a salve to my conscience and a balm to my wounded ego.
   • [Title:] Tame March PCE inflation no salve after downbeat Q1 US GDP report2025 April 30, “Tame March PCE inflation no salve after downbeat Q1 US GDP report”, in Reuters, archived from the original on 01 May 2025

Verb (1)

salve (third-person singular simple present salves, present participle salving, simple past and past participle salved)

1. (transitive) To calm or assuage.
   • She feels guilty for pampering him, and salves her conscience by bossily ordering him to go and fetch the clothes from the line[.]1985, Joan Morrison, Share House Blues, Boolarong Publications, page 26
2. To heal by applications or medicaments; to apply salve to; to anoint.
   • I do beseech your majesty […] salve the long-grown wounds of my intemperance."c. 1597 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The First Part of Henry the Fourth, […]”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and...
3. To heal; to remedy; to cure; to make good.
   • But Ebranck salved both their infamies / With noble deedes.1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book II, Canto X”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC, stanza 21
   • What may we do, then, to salve this seeming inconsistence?1643, J[ohn] M[ilton], The Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce: […], London: […] T[homas] P[aine] and M[atthew] S[immons] […], →OCLC
4. (dated) To salvage.
   • The interior woodwork was largely salved from the two cars, as well as the majority of the fittings and seats.1942 March, “Notes and News: Repairing Blitzed Underground Cars”, in Railway Magazine, page 90

Verb (2)

salve (third-person singular simple present salves, present participle salving, simple past and past participle salved)

1. (obsolete) To save (the appearances or the phenomena); to explain (a celestial phenomenon); to account for (the apparent motions of the celestial bodies).
2. (obsolete) To resolve (a difficulty); to refute (an objection); to harmonize (an apparent contradiction).
   • He which should hold it more rational to make the whole Universe move, and thereby to salve the Earths mobility, is more unreasonable....1661, Thomas Salusbury, transl., Galileo's Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems
3. (obsolete) To explain away; to mitigate; to excuse.

Interjection

1. Hail; a greeting.

Verb (3)

salve (third-person singular simple present salves, present participle salving, simple past and past participle salved)

1. (transitive) To say “salve” to; to greet; to salute.
   • By this that ſtraunger knight in preſence came, / And goodly ſalued them; who nought againe / Him anſwered, as courteſie became, / But with ſterne lookes, and ſtomachous diſdaine, / Gaue ſignes of grudge and diſcontentment vaine: […]1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book II, Canto VIII”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC, stanza 23, page 297