Etymology 1
From saliō + -tus (suffix forming action nouns from verbs).
Noun
saltus m (genitive saltūs); fourth declension
- A leap, jump, bound, spring; a leaping
Nātūra nōn facit saltūs.- Nature does not make leaps.
29 BCE – 19 BCE,
Virgil,
Aeneid 2.565–566:
- “Dēseruēre omnēs dēfessī, et corpora saltū
ad terram mīsēre aut ignibus aegra dedēre.”- “All [of my men], exhausted, had given up [the fight], and with a leap had flung [themselves] to the ground [below] or else consigned their weakened bodies to the flames.”
Etymology 2
Uncertain. Perhaps related to silva. Compare also Ancient Greek άλσος (álsos, “sacred grove, copse”), from Pre-Greek, which would point to substrate origin if related.
(Can this(+) etymology be sourced?)
Noun
saltus m (genitive saltūs); fourth declension
- A forest or mountain pasture; a pass, dale, ravine, glade.
2 CE,
Ovid,
The Art of Love 1.95:
- aut ut apēs saltusque suos et olentia nactae / pascua per flōrēs et thyma summa volant
- or as the bees, having attained their forest, and their sweet-smelling pastures, range through the flowers and the tips of the thyme
- A defile, a narrow pass
- (historical units of measure) A saltus, a large unit of area equal to four centuriae (approximately 500 acres or 200 hectares), used especially in reference to tracts of public land.
References
- “saltus”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
- “saltus”, in Charlton T. Lewis (1891) An Elementary Latin Dictionary, New York: Harper & Brothers
- saltus in Charles du Fresne du Cange’s Glossarium Mediæ et Infimæ Latinitatis (augmented edition with additions by D. P. Carpenterius, Adelungius and others, edited by Léopold Favre, 1883–1887)
- saltus in Gaffiot, Félix (1934) Dictionnaire illustré latin-français, Hachette.