Inherited from Ottoman Turkish صالق (ṣalıḳ, “at liberty, free, loose, thrown, cast, vagrant, savage”), from Ottoman Turkish صالمق (ṣalmaḳ, “to loose, to free, to let go, to send”), from Proto-Turkic *sal- (“to swing, to let hang down, to let go, to spare, to set free, to drop, to lower”), morphologically sal- + -ık. Cognates with Azerbaijani salıq (“news”), Kazakh салық (salyq, “tax, duty”), Kyrgyz салык (salık, “tax, duty”), Turkmen salyk (“drooping”).