Somersault

//ˈsʌməˌsɒlt// noun, verb

noun, verb ·Uncommon ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 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.
  2. 2
    an acrobatic feat in which the feet roll over the head (either forward or backward) and return wordnet
Verb
  1. 1
    To perform a somersault.

    "The performer somersaulted all the way across the stage."

  2. 2
    do a somersault wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms
be lostcapsizalcapsizeculbuteflipfounder

Example

More examples

"Tom did a somersault on the trampoline."

Etymology

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”).

Related phrases

back somersaultfront somersaultsomersault signalroll over

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.