verb

saltar

jump

Es elevarse del suelo con impulso usando los pies y volver a caer en otro lugar.

Definition & meaning

Saltar is a Spanish verb with several related meanings:

To jump or leap: to push off the ground and move into the air.
Example: El niño salta. — “The child jumps.”
To jump over or across something:
Example: Saltar una valla — “to jump over a fence.”
To skip or omit: to leave out a step, section, or item.
Example: Saltar una página — “to skip a page.”
To spring into action or react suddenly:
Example: Saltó de la silla. — “He or she jumped out of the chair.”
To go off or be triggered: used of alarms, fuses, and similar devices.
In the expression saltar a la vista, it means to be obvious or to stand out.

Grammar & Word origin

Saltar is an infinitive ending in -ar, the most common verb class in Spanish. Its stem is salt-. It is generally regular: for example, salto means “I jump” or “I skip,” depending on context.

The verb comes from Latin saltāre, meaning “to dance” or “to leap,” related to salīre, “to jump.”

Synonyms & antonyms

Synonyms vary by meaning:

For jumping: brincar and dar un salto . Brincar is often similar to “hop” or “bounce”; dar un salto literally means “to make a jump.”
For skipping or omitting: omitir and prescindir de . These emphasize leaving something out rather than physically jumping.
For an alarm or mechanism going off: activarse [?](vocabuo://word/activarse] can describe becoming activated, though it is less idiomatic in some contexts.

There is no single antonym for all meanings. Depending on context, possible opposites include aterrizar (“to land”), quedarse quieto (“to stay still”), and incluir (“to include,” opposite of omitting).