Etymology

salt

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Today it means: A common substance, chemically consisting mainly of sodium chloride (NaCl), used extensively as a food ingredient, seasoning, condiment, and preservative. Full definition →

Middle English salt ← Old English sealt ← Proto-West Germanic *salt
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salt · noun, adjective, verb1

  1. Proto-Indo-European · inherited from*sḗh₂l“salt”
  2. Proto-Germanic · inherited from*saltą
  3. Proto-West Germanic · inherited from*salt
  4. Old English · inherited fromsealt
  5. Middle English · inherited fromsalt
  6. English todaysalt

PIE word *sḗh₂l From Middle English salt, from Old English sealt, from Proto-West Germanic *salt, from Proto-Germanic *saltą, from Proto-Indo-European *sḗh₂l (“salt”). Doublet of sal, salary, and salsa, all ultimately from Latin sāl (“salt”), which it superseded as the general term for "salt". Cognate with Dutch zout, German Salz, Danish, Faroese, Icelandic, Norwegian Bokmål, Norwegian Nynorsk, and Swedish salt.

salt · noun2

  1. Latinsaliō
  2. Latinsaltus
  3. English todaysalt

Borrowed from Latin saltus.

Salt · proper noun3

  1. Old English · inherited fromSelte
  2. Middle English · inherited from[Term?]
  3. English todaySalt

From Middle English [Term?], from Old English Selte. Compare Salter. The Staffordshire village was recorded as Selte in 1086 (DB), for a salt pit or saltworks.

Words from the same roots

Latinsaltus all →

saultsaltosaltationsaltus

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.