Salivas

Part of speech: verb, noun

Definitions

1. A liquid produced in the mouth that helps with swallowing and tasting food
2. A bodily fluid that moistens food for easier consumption and contains enzymes for digestion
3. A watery secretion from the salivary glands that aids in the breakdown of food and maintains oral moisture

Etymology: The plural "salivas" is simply the countable form of "saliva," and it is rarely used, since English speakers almost always treat saliva as an uncountable mass. It appears mainly when someone wants to refer to several distinct portions or specimens, as a lab or medical context might. The noun itself is a learned borrowing from Latin "saliva," meaning spittle. Its origin is uncertain, though one proposal links it to a Proto-Indo-European root meaning dirt or dirty, which would also give Old English "salu," meaning dark or dusky. English already had its own words for the fluid before this Latin term arrived. Middle English had "salive" and "salve," both drawn from the same Latin source, along with "slaver," which survives today as "slaver" in the sense of drooling, and "spittle," which came from the Middle English forms "spyttle" and "spetel."

Synonyms: spits, drools, expectorates, emits saliva, produces saliva