salvo
noun
a simultaneous or successive discharge of artillery, bombs, etc.
salvo
1 American
[sal-voh]
/ ˈsæl voʊ /
noun
-
salvos,
plural
-
salvoes
plural
-
a simultaneous or successive discharge of artillery, bombs, etc.
-
a round of fire given as a salute.
-
a round of cheers or applause.
salvo
2
American
[sal-voh]
/ ˈsæl voʊ /
noun
Archaic.
-
salvos
plural
-
an excuse or quibbling evasion.
-
something to save a person's reputation or soothe a person's feelings.
salvo
1
British
/ ˈsælvəʊ /
noun
-
a discharge of fire from weapons in unison, esp on a ceremonial occasion
-
concentrated fire from many weapons, as in a naval battle
-
an outburst, as of applause
salvo
2
British
/ ˈsælvəʊ /
noun
-
an excuse or evasion
-
an expedient to save a reputation or soothe hurt feelings
-
(in legal documents) a saving clause; reservation
Salvo
3
British
/ ˈsælvəʊ /
noun
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of salvo1
1585–95; earlier salva < Italian ≪ Latin salvē salve 3
Origin of salvo2
1635–45; < Latin salvō, ablative of salvus safe, found in legal phrases
Explanation
A salvo is when troops fire their guns all at the same time. A salvo of shots might signal the beginning of a military battle. Another word for the gunfire kind of salvo is a "volley." Military planners have used salvos as a way to overwhelm an opposing army, including during engagements between battleships and tanks. You can also use salvo in a more figurative way, describing a verbal barrage or attack: "Her direct, almost rude questions were seen as the opening salvo in the battle between the two political candidates."
Vocabulary lists containing salvo
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
Homeland Security highlighted the arrests of five people, calling them “the opening salvo in a sustained, large-scale ICE operation.”
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 23, 2026
The burger wars are back, with the latest salvo coming from Burger King.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 7, 2026
Another drone salvo hit the Caspian Pipeline Consortium's terminal near the Russian Black Sea port of Novorossiysk -- a key export route for Kazakh oil, partly owned by Chevron and Shell.
From Barron's ● Jul. 19, 2026
But it was the sight of loosehead prop Ox Nche stampeding through Ollie Chessum and Jamie George, with the England defence desperately, vainly backpedalling, that summed up a brutally chastening opening salvo.
From BBC ● Jul. 4, 2026
From the starting gun to the final salvo, they had rowed as if they could keep going at the same pace for another two miles or ten.
From "The Boys in the Boat: Nine Americans and Their Epic Quest for Gold at the 1936 Berlin Olympics" by Daniel James Brown
But as the price of his satellite service increased, De Salvo cut the cord in 2021 and declined to follow the team to its new TV home on a competing pay channel.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 14, 2026
He has respect from his peers too with Germany boss Antonio di Salvo, a former Bayern Munich forward, recognising the job Carsley has done.
From BBC ● Jun. 28, 2025
As she scrambled to find a hotel room, De Salvo forgot to call in sick from her job as a court interpreter.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jan. 16, 2025
The last time that Donna De Salvo, a senior adjunct curator at Dia, worked with McQueen, in 2016, she was chief curator at the Whitney Museum, where they showed “End Credits.”
From New York Times ● May 10, 2024
When on August 1 the Roosevelt steamed out from Cape York, she had on board several Eskimo families which we had picked up there and at Salvo Island.
From The North Pole Its Discovery in 1909 under the auspices of the Peary Arctic Club by Robert E. (Robert Edwin) Peary
With the official status of talks between Washington and Tehran uncertain and ahead of a meeting in Pakistan on Monday with key regional players, daily salvoes of strikes across the region have continued unabated.
From Barron's ● Mar. 29, 2026
Gen Surovikin, who has a reputation for harsh methods, said Ukraine's Himars salvoes had damaged Kherson's Antonivsky Bridge and the Kakhovka hydroelectric dam, blocking traffic along those key arteries.
From BBC ● Oct. 18, 2022
The tone of the early salvoes dismayed Noura Bittar Søborg, a Syrian asylum seeker who fled Homs in 2011 and has managed to bring her father, mother and younger sister to Denmark.
From The Guardian ● May 30, 2015
Artillery salvoes were fired from an area that Nalyvaichenko said is under the control of a Cossack unit manned by Russian citizens.
From US News ● Feb. 15, 2015
From a table at the far end of the hall, laughter was rippling, and salvoes of witticisms, which drowned other people's remarks and attracted universal attention.
From The Undying Past by Hermann Sudermann
By summer 2025, Moscow was deploying hundreds of the drones in nighttime salvos.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 17, 2026
We are already seeing the first salvos of this escalated warfare.
From Salon ● Jul. 1, 2026
The UAE and Qatar both said they had intercepted drone and missile salvos on Wednesday, with Abu Dhabi saying it had been targeted by three ballistic missiles and 129 drones, intercepting all but eight drones.
From Barron's ● Mar. 4, 2026
That moment in Birmingham has been one of the few opening salvos to go the way of England, however.
From BBC ● Nov. 20, 2025
He too had felt that ascending chill of déjà vu as he read the opening salvos of Mendel’s paper.
From "The Gene" by Siddhartha Mukherjee
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