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somersault.

Starting on one's feet, an instance of rotating one's body 360 degrees while airborne or on the ground, with one's feet passing over one's head.

10 characters3 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

noun/ˈsʌməˌsɒlt/Received-Pronunciation/ˈsʌməˌsɔːlt/Received-Pronunciation/ˈsʊməˌsɒlt/Northern-England/ˈsʌmɚˌsɔlt/General-American
  1. Starting on one's feet, an instance of rotating one's body 360 degrees while airborne or on the ground, with one's feet passing over one's head.

Where this word comes from

From French sombresault (now obsolete, compare French sursaut, soubresaut), from Old Occitan sobresalt, from sobre- (“over, above”) + salt (“jump”), from Latin suprā (“over”) + saltus (“jump”). Doublet of soubresaut. Cognate with Spanish sobresaltar (“to spook, startle”) and Portuguese sobressaltar (“to spook, scare, jump over”).

verb/ˈsʌməˌsɒlt/Received-Pronunciation/ˈsʌməˌsɔːlt/Received-Pronunciation/ˈsʊməˌsɒlt/Northern-England/ˈsʌmɚˌsɔlt/General-American
  1. To perform a somersault.

    The performer somersaulted all the way across the stage.
Where this word comes from

From French sombresault (now obsolete, compare French sursaut, soubresaut), from Old Occitan sobresalt, from sobre- (“over, above”) + salt (“jump”), from Latin suprā (“over”) + saltus (“jump”). Doublet of soubresaut. Cognate with Spanish sobresaltar (“to spook, startle”) and Portuguese sobressaltar (“to spook, scare, jump over”).

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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.