salt
UK /sɒlt/ · US /sɑlt/ noun, adjective, verb, proper noun
- noun A common substance, chemically consisting mainly of sodium chloride (NaCl), used extensively as a food ingredient, seasoning, condiment, and preservative.
- noun (chemistry) One of the compounds formed from the reaction of an acid with a base, where a positive ion replaces a hydrogen of the acid.
- noun (uncommon, countable) A salt marsh, a saline marsh at the shore of a sea.
- noun (slang, countable) A sailor (also old salt).
- noun (cryptography) A 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.
- noun A person who seeks employment at a company in order to (once employed by it) help unionize it.
- noun (obsolete, uncountable) Flavour; taste; seasoning.
- noun (obsolete, uncountable) Piquancy; wit; sense. “Attic salt”
- adjective Of water: containing salt, saline. “Why the Sea is Salt”
- adjective Treated with salt as a preservative; cured with salt, salted. “salt beef”
- adjective Of land, fields etc.: flooded by the sea. “a salt marsh”
- adjective Of plants: growing in the sea or on land flooded by the sea. “salt grass”
- adjective Related to salt deposits, excavation, processing or use. “a salt mine”
- adjective (figurative, obsolete) Bitter; sharp; pungent.
- adjective (figurative, obsolete) Salacious; lecherous; lustful; (of animals) in heat.
- adjective (colloquial, archaic) Costly; expensive.
- verb (transitive) To add salt to.
- verb (intransitive) To deposit salt as a saline solution. “The brine begins to salt.”
- verb (nautical, of a ship) To fill with salt between the timbers and planks for the preservation of the timber.
- verb (mining) To blast metal into (as a portion of a mine) in order to cause to appear to be a productive seam.
Synonyms
common salt table salt rock salt road salt sal salt down Strategic Arms Limitation Talks saltiness salinity
Antonyms
Etymology
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 Doublet of sal, salary, and salsa, all ultimately from Latin sāl (“salt”), which it superseded as the general term for "salt".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.
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.
Webster’s 1913
- noun The chloride of sodium, a substance used for seasoning food, for the preservation of meat, etc. It is found native in the earth, and is also produced, by evaporation and crystallization, from sea water and other water impregnated with saline particles.
- noun Hence, flavor; taste; savor; smack; seasoning.
- adjective Of or relating to salt; abounding in, or containing, salt; prepared or preserved with, or tasting of, salt; salted; as, salt beef; salt water. "Salt tears." Chaucer.
- adjective Overflowed with, or growing in, salt water; as, a salt marsh; salt grass.
Etymology [AS. sealt; akin to OS. & OFries. salt, D. zout, G. salz, Icel., Sw., & Dan. salt, L. sal, Gr. sole, Ir. & Gael. salann, W. halen, of unknown origin. Cf. Sal, Salad, Salary, Saline, Sauce, Sausage.]
Etymology [AS. sealt, salt. See Salt, n.]
Sources: Wiktionary · WordNet 3.0 · Webster’s 1913 — from the Wiktionary entry “salt”, CC BY-SA 4.0. Details