Definition of "salaam"
salaam
interjection
noun
plural salaams
A low bow as a ceremonial act of deference.
Quotations
My servant was late one morning, and I was greatly annoyed at his delay. He came up and stood before me with his usual salaam, and with a slight catch in his voice explained that his eight-year-old daughter had died last night.
1895, Rabindranath Tagore, letter dated 14 August, 1895 in Glimpses of Bengal, London: Macmillan, 1921, pp. 160-161
Mr. Tsoutsou and his wife appeared for just a moment to see how I was faring, commented bravely on the delicious, appetizing appearance of the skinned fish and disappeared with bows and salaams which sent an electric thrill through the assembled patrons of Herakleion’s most distinguished restaurant.
1942, Henry Miller, The Colossus of Maroussi, London: Secker & Warburg, Part Two, p. 112
verb
third-person singular simple present salaams, present participle salaaming, simple past and past participle salaamed
(intransitive, transitive) To perform a salaam to (someone).
Quotations
The tea-planters’ houses of Ceylon […] were often surrounded by admirable lawns of coarse mountain grass, upon which the planters’ ladies enviably sat, buzzed about by harmless insects and salaamed by passing serfs.
1968, Jan Morris, chapter 17, in Pax Britannica, Faber & Faber, published 2010, page 379