somerset

somerset — noun

1. a county that lies in the southwestern part of England, known for its rolling gr

1.noun
Definition

a county that lies in the southwestern part of England, known for its rolling green hills, historic towns, and the city of Bath with its Roman-built baths and Georgian architecture.

Example

Somerset is famous for its green hills and the historic city of Bath.

proper noun — name of a British county

The family spent their summer holiday exploring villages in Somerset.

Usage Note

This sense always takes a capital S. It is a place name, not an ordinary noun — it does not combine with articles the way countable nouns do (❌ 'a Somerset', ✅ 'Somerset' or 'the county of Somerset').

Common Mistakes

I visited the Somerset last year.
I visited Somerset last year.
place names do not normally take a definite article unless part of a descriptive phrase like 'the county of Somerset'.

2. a movement in which your whole body rolls forward or backward with your feet pas

2.nounB2
Definition

a movement in which your whole body rolls forward or backward with your feet passing over your head, returning you to a standing or lying position — the same motion as a somersault, sometimes spelled this way in British English.

Example

Yael showed the children how to do a forward somerset on the gym mat.

do a forward somerset — fixed expression with 'do'

Eshe landed her backward somerset perfectly on the thick blue mat and smiled.

backward somerset — direction modifier

Common collocations
  • do a somerset
  • turn a somerset
  • forward somerset
  • backward somerset
  • land a somerset
Synonyms
  • somersault

    the standard spelling worldwide; use in formal and written contexts

  • forward roll

    a specific type of somersault done forward from a crouch, common in school PE classes

  • flip

    informal term; often implies a jump with rotation, not just a roll on the ground

Grammar Patterns

do + somerset

turn + somerset

forward/backward + somerset

Usage Note

This is a chiefly British variant spelling of 'somersault'. In formal writing, sports reporting, and most published contexts, 'somersault' is the standard form. This spelling is more common in informal British English and in older texts.

Common Mistakes

The gymnast performed a perfect Somerset.
The gymnast performed a perfect somerset.
when referring to the acrobatic move, use a lowercase 's' to distinguish it from the county name.

Word family

  • somersault
    nounB1
  • somersault
    verbB2
  • somersaulting
    nounC1

Synonym discussion

Sense: noun/2

"Somersault" and "somerset" describe the same acrobatic movement — rolling the body head over heels. "Somersault" is the standard spelling worldwide, used in gymnastics manuals, sports reporting, children's books, and any formal context. "Somerset" is a chiefly British variant that reflects an older pronunciation-based spelling; it survives mostly in informal British speech and fiction, and is far less common in print. A learner should default to "somersault" in all writing. "Forward roll" is narrower: it refers specifically to a front-facing somersault done from a crouching or standing position without jumping, commonly taught in school PE classes. All forward rolls are somersaults, but not all somersaults are forward rolls — a backward flip, for example, is a somersault but not a forward roll.

somersaultsomerset ↗forward roll

Etymology

Old EnglishAnglo-SaxonEnglish

The word has two separate origins that happen to share the same spelling. The county name 'Somerset' comes from Old English 'Sumorsǣte', meaning 'the people of the summer settlement' — the Anglo-Saxon tribe that settled the area. The acrobatic sense 'somerset' is a phonetic variant of 'somersault', which comes from Old French 'sombresault' (modern French 'soubresaut'), from Latin 'supra' (above) + 'saltus' (a leap). The two meanings are etymologically unrelated and just happen to be homographs in English.