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saliva.

A clear, slightly alkaline liquid secreted into the mouth by the salivary glands and mucous glands, consisting of water, mucin, protein, and enzymes. It moistens the mouth, lubricates ingested food, and begins the breakdown of starches.

6 characters3 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

noun/səˈlaɪvə/

  1. A clear, slightly alkaline liquid secreted into the mouth by the salivary glands and mucous glands, consisting of water, mucin, protein, and enzymes. It moistens the mouth, lubricates ingested food, and begins the breakdown of starches.

    countable · uncountable
Where this word comes from

A learned borrowing from Latin salīva (“spittle”), replacing or merging with Middle English salive, salve (“saliva”), from the same Latin source. Further origin uncertain. Perhaps from Proto-Indo-European *salw-, *sal- (“dirt, dirty”), cognate with Old English salu (“dark, dusky”). More at sallow. Displaced Middle English slaver, slavere ("saliva"; whence Modern English slaver); and Middle English spyttle, spetel, spatel, spotel ("saliva"; whence Modern English spittle, spettle, spattle).

verb/səˈlaɪvə/

  1. to salivate

    nonstandard
Where this word comes from

A learned borrowing from Latin salīva (“spittle”), replacing or merging with Middle English salive, salve (“saliva”), from the same Latin source. Further origin uncertain. Perhaps from Proto-Indo-European *salw-, *sal- (“dirt, dirty”), cognate with Old English salu (“dark, dusky”). More at sallow. Displaced Middle English slaver, slavere ("saliva"; whence Modern English slaver); and Middle English spyttle, spetel, spatel, spotel ("saliva"; whence Modern English spittle, spettle, spattle).

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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.