The story
- Latin · derived fromsuprā“over”
- Old Occitan · derived fromsobresalt
- French · derived fromsombresault
- English todaysomersault
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”).
Words from the same roots
Latinsuprā all →
supraSurmiran
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.