salt

plural salts

1. countableuncountableA common substance, chemically consisting mainly of sodium chloride (NaCl), used extensively as a food ingredient, seasoning, condiment, and preservative.

   Near-synonyms: table salt, rock salt, road salt

   4 more examples

   Take gode almaunde mylke y-draw wyth wyn, an let hem boyle to-gederys, an caste þer-to Safroun an Salt; […]

   Take good almond milk made with wine, and let it boil together, and add thereto Saffron and Salt; […]

   1430, Thomas Austin, editor, Two Fifteenth-century Cookery-books. Harleian ms. 279 (ab. 1430), & Harl. ms. 4016 (ab. 1450), with Extracts from Ashmole ms. 1429, Laud ms. 553, & Douce ms. 55 (Early English Text Society, Original Series; 91), volume 1, London: Routledge; N. Trübner & Co., published 1888, →OCLC, page 11

   Common salt, chloride of sodium, appears to be essential to the life of the higher animals.

   1880, Arthur Herbert Church, Food: Some Account of Its Sources, Constituents and Uses, London: Chapman and Hall, page 24

   Nando was pierced with grief, but he didn't allow himself to cry. Tears, he knew, would cost his body salt. Without salt, you die.

   2013, Bear Grylls, True Grit: the Epic True Stories of Heroism and Survival That Have Shaped My Life, →ISBN, page 9

   Here’s a grocery list of foods Chestnut has eaten competitively, drawn from his Major League Eating bio: apple pie, asparagus, boysenberry pie, brats, burritos, chicken spiedies (a kind of sandwich), chicken wings, chili, corned beef sandwiches, eggs, fish tacos, funnel cake, grilled cheese sandwiches, gyoza, Krystal hamburgers, horseshoe sandwiches, hot dogs, ice cream, jalapeno poppers, kolaches, pastrami sandwiches, Philly cheesesteaks, pierogi, pizza, pork ribs, pulled pork, poutine, salt potatoes, shrimp, tacos, tamales, turkey and Twinkies.

   2015 July 2, Michael Pearson, “6 things to know about hot dog king Joey Chestnut”, in CNN

   Synonyms: common salt, table salt, rock salt, road salt

2. countableuncountablechemistryOne of the compounds formed from the reaction of an acid with a base, where a positive ion replaces a hydrogen of the acid.
3. countableuncommonA salt marsh, a saline marsh at the shore of a sea.
4. countableslangA sailor (also old salt).

   Around the door are generally to be seen, laughing and gossiping, clusters of old salts.

   1850, Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter

   1 more example

   I never go as a passenger; nor, though I am something of a salt, do I ever go to sea as a Commodore, or a Captain, or a Cook.

   1851 November 14, Herman Melville, “chapter 1”, in Moby-Dick; or, The Whale, 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers; London: Richard Bentley, →OCLC

5. countableuncountablecomputingA sequence of random data added to plain text data (such as passwords or messages) prior to encryption or hashing, in order to make brute force decryption more difficult.
6. countableuncountableA person who seeks employment at a company in order to (once employed by it) help unionize it.
7. obsoleteuncountableFlavour; taste; seasoning.

   Though we are justices and doctors and churchmen […] we have some salt of our youth in us.

   c. 1597 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Merry Wiues of Windsor”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act II, scene iii]

8. obsoleteuncountablePiquancy; wit; sense.

   Attic salt

9. countableobsoleteA dish for salt at table; a salt cellar.

   I out and bought some things; among others, a dozen of silver salts.

   1664 September 18 (date written; Gregorian calendar), Samuel Pepys, Mynors Bright, transcriber, “September 9th, 1664”, in Henry B[enjamin] Wheatley, editor, The Diary of Samuel Pepys […], volume IV, London: George Bell & Sons […]; Cambridge: Deighton Bell & Co., published 1894, →OCLC

10. countablehistoricalin pluraluncountableEpsom salts or other salt used as a medicine.
11. figurativelyuncountableSkepticism and common sense.

    Any politician's statements must be taken with a grain of salt, but his need to be taken with a whole shaker of salt.

12. InternetuncountableTears; indignation; outrage; arguing.

    There was so much salt in that thread about the poor casting decision.

13. UKhistoricaluncountableThe money demanded by Eton schoolboys during the montem.

comparative more salt · superlative most salt

1. Of water: containing salt, saline.

   Why the Sea is Salt

   1 more example

   After a few days of north-west wind, the waters of the Gordon will be found salt for twelve miles up from the bar.

   1874, Marcus Clarke, For the Term of His Natural Life, Penguin, published 2009, page 97

2. Treated with salt as a preservative; cured with salt, salted.

   salt beef

   1 more example

   Philander went into the next room[…]and came back with a salt mackerel that dripped brine like a rainstorm.

   1913, Joseph C[rosby] Lincoln, chapter VIII, in Mr. Pratt’s Patients, New York, N.Y.; London: D[aniel] Appleton and Company, →OCLC

3. Of land, fields etc.: flooded by the sea.

   a salt marsh

4. Of plants: growing in the sea or on land flooded by the sea.

   salt grass

5. Related to salt deposits, excavation, processing or use.

   a salt mine

   1 more example

   The salt factory is a key connecting element in the seawater infrastructure.

6. figurativelyobsoleteBitter; sharp; pungent.

   I have a salt and sorry rheum offends me […].

   c. 1603–1604 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Othello, the Moore of Venice”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act III, scene iv]

7. figurativelyobsoleteSalacious; lecherous; lustful; (of animals) in heat.

   It is impossible you should see this, / Were they as prime as goats, as hot as monkeys, / As salt as wolves in pride, and fools as gross / As ignorance made drunk.

   c. 1603–1604 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Othello, the Moore of Venice”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act III, scene iii]

   1 more example

   And when he saw that all the dogs were flocking about her, yarring at the retardment of their accesse to her, and every way keeping such a coyle with her, as they are wont to do about a proud or salt bitch, he forthwith departed […]

   1653, Thomas Urquhart, transl., The First Book of the works of Mr. Francis Rabelais, Book 2, Chapter 22, p. 153

8. archaiccolloquialCostly; expensive.

present singular third person salts · participle present salting · participle past salted · past salted

1. transitiveTo add salt to.

   to salt fish, beef, or pork; to salt the city streets in the winter

   Synonyms: salt down

2. intransitiveTo deposit salt as a saline solution.

   The brine begins to salt.

3. nauticalTo fill with salt between the timbers and planks for the preservation of the timber.
4. To insert or inject something into an object to give it properties it would not naturally have.
   1. businessTo blast metal into (as a portion of a mine) in order to cause to appear to be a productive seam.
   2. archaeologyTo add bogus evidence to an archaeological site.
   3. transitiveTo add certain chemical elements to (a nuclear or conventional weapon) so that it generates more radiation.

      1 more example

      The composition of the fallout can also be changed by "salting" the weapon to be detonated. This consists in the inclusion of significant quantities of certain elements, possibly enriched in specific isotopes, for the purpose of producing induced radioactivity. There are several reasons why a weapon might be salted.

      1964, U.S. Atomic Energy Commission, The Effects of Nuclear Weapons, page 417

5. transitiveTo sprinkle throughout.

   They salted the document with arcane language.

   2 more examples

   The Libertarians wish we had won the Vietnamese War, they would like to revoke civil rights legislation, they believe (even though they are supposedly anti-state) in a stronger Pentagon. They are salted with Nixonites, Young Americans for Freedom, John Birchers, Reaganites — in other words the old Joe McCarthy gang again. I thought they had left us, or reformed, or taken up knitting.

   1976 December 11, Ronnie Allen, “No Political Eunuch”, in Gay Community News, volume 4, number 24, page 4

   These were pamphlets, often written in various Jewish vernaculars, describing the location of the Holy sites and salting the accounts with mythic and homiletical materials.

   1993, The Journal of Jewish Thought & Philosophy, page 154

6. computingTo add filler bytes before encrypting, in order to make brute-force decryption more resource-intensive.
7. To render a thing useless.
   1. transitivegovernmentTo sow with salt (of land), symbolizing a curse on its re-inhabitation.

      In this place were put to the ground and salted the houses of José Mascarenhas.

   2. wiki jargonTo lock a page title so it cannot be created.
8. To seek employment at a company in order to help unionize it.

   And then there was a different faction of organizers who you call more like “professional activists” or “white leftists,” and they were maybe more privileged, maybe just joined the job to salt for the union.

   2026 June 2, Alex Skopic, Chris Smalls, “Chris Smalls Is Still Fighting the Bosses”, in Current Affairs

plural salts

1. obsoleteA bounding; a leaping; a prance.

   […] he hath the skill to draw Their nectar forth, with kissing; and could make More wanton salts from this brave promontory, Down to this valley, than the nimble roe;

   1616, Ben Jonson, The Devil Is an Ass, in Gifford’s 1816 edition volume V page 67

1. abbreviationacronymhistoricalgeopoliticsAcronym of Strategic Arms Limitation Talks.

plural SALTs

1. USabbreviationacronymattributiveusuallygovernmentAcronym of state and local tax(es) [deduction], a tax deduction whereby some portion of the money paid as taxes to state and local governments is not taxed at the federal level; the tax-deductible portion is nominally capped, but the cap is circumventable via special-interest loopholes.

   Both the SALT limitations and the doubled standard deduction expire after 2025, putting SALT on the 2025 menu for lawmakers.

   2024 August 9, Andrew Lautz, “How SALT May Shake Up the 2025 Tax Debate”, in Bipartisan Policy Center

   1 more example

   In general, income taxes paid or accrued in carrying on a trade or business or an income-producing activity are subject to the SALT cap. The SALT cap is set to expire for taxable years beginning after December 31, 2025.

   2025 May 28, “The One, Big, Beautiful Bill”, in United States House Committee on Ways & Means, page 37

2. UKabbreviationacronymgovernmentAcronym of speech and language therapist.
3. UKabbreviationacronymgovernmentAcronym of speech and language therapy.

plural Salts

1. countableuncountableA village in Salt and Enson parish, Stafford borough, Staffordshire, England (OS grid ref SJ9527).
2. countableuncountableA surname.