Salmon has a silent l, and it is another Renaissance insertion. English took the word in the early 1200s from Anglo-French samoun and spelled it that way for three hundred years — no l, because there was no l in the French and none in the English pronunciation. From the 1500s the classical l was restored to display the Latin ancestor, salmonem. The spelling changed; the pronunciation did not. Walter Scott was still writing saumon in the nineteenth century.
The Latin word probably meant "the leaper," from salire, "to leap," though some scholars dismiss that as folk etymology and others trace it to Celtic. Salmon replaced the native Old English word for the fish, læx, which survives in English only as the borrowed lox. Notably the fish does not enter the Mediterranean, and is mentioned by no Greek author at all.
salmon (n.) early 13c., samoun , the North Atlantic salmon, from Anglo-French samoun , Old French salmun (Modern French saumon ), from Latin salmonem (nominative salmo ) "a salmon," probably originally "leaper," from salire "to leap" (see salient (adj.)), though some dismiss this as folk etymology. Another theory traces the Latin word to Celtic. Thompson ["Glossary of Greek Fishes"] writes that "The Salmon does not enter the Mediterranean. It is not mentioned by any Greek author, nor by any Latin writer except those two" [Pliny and Ausonius]. It replaced Old English læx , from PIE *lax , the more usual word for the fish (see lox ). The classical -l- was restored in English from 16c., though Scott still uses saumon . In reference to a pinkish-orange color like that of the flesh of the fish, it is recorded by 1786. Related: Salmonic . also from early 13c.
salmon came in through Latin, and its spelling follows that family's conventions.
What gives it away on the page
| silent letters that spoil the pronunciation | Renaissance scribes inserted them to display a Latin ancestor. See the caveats below — this is the one cue that is often a lie.debt, doubt, receipt, salmon |