salt

English

English Wikipedia has an article on:

salt

Wikipedia

Etymology 1

From Middle English salt, from Old English sealt, from Proto-West Germanic *salt, from Proto-Germanic *saltą, from Proto-Indo-European *séh₂ls (“salt”). Doublet of sal, ultimately from Latin sāl (“salt”), which it superseded as the general term for "salt".

Pronunciation

• (UK) enPR: sŏlt, sôlt, IPA^(key): /sɒlt/, /sɔːlt/
• (US) enPR: sôlt, IPA^(key): /sɔlt/
  • (cot–caught merger) enPR: sält, IPA^(key): /sɑlt/, ,
• (New Zealand) enPR: sŏlt, IPA^(key): /sɔlt/,

• Audio (US)

  (file)

• Audio (UK)

  (file)

• Audio (UK)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɒlt, -ɔːlt

Noun

salt (countable and uncountable, plural salts)

2. A common substance, chemically consisting mainly of sodium chloride (NaCl), used extensively as a condiment and preservative.
   • 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:

     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;

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

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

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

     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.

4. (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.
5. (uncommon) A salt marsh, a saline marsh at the shore of a sea.
6. (slang) A sailor (also old salt).
   • 1850, Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter:

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

   • 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:

     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.

7. (cryptography) Randomly chosen bytes added to a plaintext message prior to encrypting or hashing it, in order to render brute-force decryption more difficult.
8. A person who seeks employment at a company in order to (once employed by it) help unionize it.
9. (obsolete) Flavour; taste; seasoning.
   • 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 Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, :

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

10. (obsolete) Piquancy; wit; sense.

    Attic salt

11. (obsolete) A dish for salt at table; a salt cellar.
    • 1664 September 19 (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:

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

12. (historical, in the plural) Epsom salts or other salt used as a medicine.
13. (figurative) Skepticism 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.

15. (Internet slang) Tears; indignation; outrage; arguing.

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

16. (UK, historical) The money demanded by Eton schoolboys during the montem.
17. One who joins a workplace for the purpose of unionizing it.

Synonyms

• sal (obsolete)

Derived terms

Related terms

• salary
• salad

Descendants

• Bislama: sol
• Tok Pisin: sol

Translations

Adjective

salt (comparative more salt, superlative most salt)

1. Of water: containing salt, saline.
   • 1874, Marcus Clarke, For the Term of His Natural Life, Penguin, published 2009, page 97:

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

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

   salt beef

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

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

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

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

6. (figurative, obsolete) Bitter; sharp; pungent.
   • 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 Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, :

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

7. (figurative, obsolete) Salacious; lecherous; lustful; (of animals) in heat.
   • 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 Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, :

     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.

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

     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 […]

8. (colloquial, archaic) Costly; expensive.

Derived terms

• saltness
• salt spray

Translations

Verb

salt (third-person singular simple present salts, present participle salting, simple past and past participle salted)

1. (transitive) To add salt to.

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

2. (intransitive) To deposit salt as a saline solution.

   The brine begins to salt.

3. (nautical, of a ship) To 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. (mining) To blast metal into (as a portion of a mine) in order to cause to appear to be a productive seam.
   2. (archaeology) To add bogus evidence to an archaeological site.
   3. (transitive) To add certain chemical elements to (a nuclear or conventional weapon) so that it generates more radiation.
      • 1964, U.S. Atomic Energy Commission, The Effects of Nuclear Weapons, page 417:

        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.

5. (transitive) To sprinkle throughout.

   They salted the document with arcane language.

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

     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.

6. (cryptography) To add filler bytes before encrypting, in order to make brute-force decryption more resource-intensive.
7. To render a thing useless.
   1. (military, transitive) To 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) To lock a page title so it cannot be created.

Antonyms

• (antonym(s) of "add salt"): desalt

Derived terms

• desalt
• salt away
• salt down
• salt out
• salt the earth
• salt up

Translations

Etymology 2

Borrowed from Latin saltus.

Noun

salt (plural salts)

1. (obsolete) A bounding; a leaping; a prance.
   • 1616, Ben Jonson, The Devil Is an Ass, in Gifford’s 1816 edition volume V page 67

     […] 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;

Anagrams

• Alts, LTAs, TLAs, alts, last, lats, slat

Catalan

Etymology

Inherited from Old Catalan salt, from Latin saltus.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): (Central)
• IPA^(key): (Balearic, Valencian)

• Audio

  (file)

Noun

salt m (plural salts)

1. jump
2. waterfall

Derived terms

• salt de perxa
• saltiró

Related terms

• saltar

References

• “salt” in Diccionari català-valencià-balear, Antoni Maria Alcover and Francesc de Borja Moll, 1962.
• “salt” in Diccionari català-valencià-balear, Antoni Maria Alcover and Francesc de Borja Moll, 1962.

Crimean Gothic

Etymology

From Proto-Germanic *saltą, from Proto-Indo-European *seh₂l-.

Noun

salt

1. salt
   • 1562, Ogier Ghiselin de Busbecq:

     Salt. Sal.

Czech

Noun

salt

1. genitive plural of salto

Danish

Etymology 1

From Old Norse saltr (“salt”), from Proto-Indo-European *séh₂l-, *séh₂ls, *sáls.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /salˀd/, ,

Adjective

salt

1. salty, salt

Inflection

Etymology 2

From Old Norse salt (akin to Old Saxon salt, Old High German salz, Old Dutch salt, Old English sealt), from Proto-Germanic *saltą, from Proto-Indo-European *séh₂l-, *séh₂ls. Compare Icelandic, Norwegian, and Swedish salt.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /salˀt/,

Noun

salt n (singular definite saltet, plural indefinite salte)

1. salt

Inflection

Etymology 3

See the etymology of the corresponding lemma form.

Verb

salt

1. imperative of salte

Related terms

• salte
• mineralsalt

Faroese

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key):

Etymology 1

From Old Norse salt, from Proto-Germanic *saltą, from Proto-Indo-European *séh₂l-, *séh₂ls, *sáls.

Noun

salt n (genitive singular salts, plural sølt)

1. salt

Declension

Related terms

• pipar
• edikur
• sinnopur
• olivinolja
• epli
• pannukøka
• rosina
• sukur
• drúvusukur
• vaniljusukur
• súltusukur
• siropur

Etymology 2

From Old Norse saltr (“salt”), from Proto-Indo-European *séh₂l-, *séh₂ls, *sáls.

Adjective

salt

1. salty

Declension

Friulian

Etymology

From Latin saltus.

Noun

salt m (plural salts)

1. jump, leap, spring

Related terms

• saltâ

Gothic

Romanization

salt

1. Romanization of 𐍃𐌰𐌻𐍄

Icelandic

Etymology

From Old Norse salt, from Proto-Germanic *saltą, from Proto-Indo-European *séh₂l-, *séh₂ls, *sáls.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /sal̥t/

• listen

  (file)

• Rhymes: -al̥t

Noun

salt n (genitive singular salts, nominative plural sölt)

1. salt

   Geturðu rétt mér saltið?

   Can you pass me the salt?

Declension

Derived terms

• salta
• saltstaukur
• saltsýra
• vega salt

Adjective

salt

1. positive degree neuter singular nominative/accusative of saltur

Latvian

Etymology

From Proto-Indo-European *ḱel- (“cold; hot”). Cognates include Lithuanian šálti.

Pronunciation

This entry needs an audio pronunciation. If you are a native speaker with a microphone, please record this word. The recorded pronunciation will appear here when it's ready.

Verb

salt (intransitive, 1st conjugation, present salstu, salsti, salst, past salu)

1. to freeze

Conjugation

Middle English

Alternative forms

• salte, scealte, selt, sealt, saulte, sawt, zalt

Etymology

From Old English sealt, from Proto-West Germanic *salt, from Proto-Germanic *saltą (noun) and Proto-Germanic *saltaz (adjective).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /salt/
• (Southern, Kent) IPA^(key): /zalt/, /zɛlt/
• (late) IPA^(key): /sau̯lt/

Noun

salt (uncountable)

1. salt (sodium chloride)
2. Something containing or for storing salt
3. Any of a group of crystalline compounds that resemble salt

Related terms

• salten
• salthous

Descendants

• English: salt
• Scots: sawt, salt, saut
• Yola: zall

References

• “salt, n.(1).”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007, retrieved 2018-04-08.

Adjective

salt (plural and weak singular salte, comparative salter, superlative saltest)

1. salty, tasting of salt
2. salted, coated in salt

Descendants

• English: salt
• Scots: sawt, salt, saut

References

• “salt, adj.”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007, retrieved 2018-04-08.

Norwegian Bokmål

Norwegian Wikipedia has an article on:

salt

Wikipedia ^no

Pronunciation

This entry needs pronunciation information. If you are familiar with the IPA then please add some!

Etymology 1

From Old Norse saltr.

Adjective

salt (neuter singular salt, definite singular and plural salte, comparative saltere, indefinite superlative saltest, definite superlative salteste)

1. salty, salt, salted

   salte peanøtter - salted peanuts

Etymology 2

From Old Norse salt (akin to Old Saxon salt, Old High German salz, Old Dutch salt, Old English sealt), from Proto-Germanic *saltą, from Proto-Indo-European *séh₂l-, *séh₂ls. Compare Danish, Swedish and Icelandic salt.

Noun

salt n (definite singular saltet, indefinite plural salter, definite plural salta or saltene)

1. salt

Etymology 3

Verb

salt

1. imperative of salte

Derived terms

References

• “salt” in The Bokmål Dictionary.

Norwegian Nynorsk

Norwegian Nynorsk Wikipedia has an article on:

salt

Wikipedia ⁿⁿ

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /sɑlt/

Etymology 1

From Old Norse saltr.

Adjective

salt (neuter singular salt, definite singular and plural salte, comparative saltare, indefinite superlative saltast, definite superlative saltaste)

1. salty, salt, salted

Etymology 2

From Old Norse salt (akin to Old Saxon salt, Old High German salz, Old Dutch salt, Old English sealt), from Proto-Germanic *saltą, from Proto-Indo-European *séh₂l-, *séh₂ls.

Noun

salt n (definite singular saltet, indefinite plural salt, definite plural salta)

1. salt

Derived terms

References

• “salt” in The Nynorsk Dictionary.

Old Danish

Etymology 1

From Old Norse salt.

Noun

salt n

1. salt

Descendants

• Danish: salt

Etymology 2

From Old Norse saltr.

Adjective

salt

1. salty, salt

Descendants

• Danish: salt

Old Frisian

Etymology

From Proto-Germanic *saltą (“salt”), *saltaz (“salty, salted”).

Noun

salt n

1. salt

Inflection

Descendants

• North Frisian: saalt
• Saterland Frisian: Soalt, Saalt
• West Frisian: sâlt

Adjective

salt

1. salty, salted

Descendants

• West Frisian: sâlt

Old Norse

Etymology 1

From Proto-Germanic *saltą.

Noun

salt n

1. salt

Declension

Related terms

• salta (“to salt”)
• saltr (“salty”)

Descendants

Etymology 2

See the etymology of the corresponding lemma form.

Adjective

salt

1. strong neuter nominative/accusative singular of saltr (“salty”)

References

• “salt”, in Geir T. Zoëga (1910) A Concise Dictionary of Old Icelandic, Oxford: Clarendon Press

Old Swedish

Etymology

From Old Norse salt.

Noun

salt n

1. salt

Declension

Descendants

• Swedish: salt c

Romanian

Etymology

Inherited from Latin saltus.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈsalt/

Noun

salt n (plural salturi)

1. leap
2. saltation

Declension

Related terms

• sălta
• săltare
• săltat
• săltăreț
• săltător
• săltătură

Verb

salt

1. first-person singular present indicative/subjunctive of sălta

Swedish

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /salt/

• audio

  (file)

Etymology 1

From Old Swedish salter, from Old Norse saltr, from Proto-Germanic *saltaz, from Proto-Indo-European *séh₂l-, *séh₂ls, *sáls.

Adjective

salt (comparative saltare, superlative saltast)

1. salty

   Antonym: (of water) söt

   Soppan är för salt

   The soup is too salty

Declension

Etymology 2

From Old Swedish salt, from Old Norse salt (akin to Old Saxon salt, Old High German salz, Old Dutch salt, Old English sealt), from Proto-Germanic *saltą, from Proto-Indo-European *séh₂l-, *séh₂ls. Compare Danish, Icelandic, Norwegian salt.

Noun

salt n

1. salt
   1. (uncountable) sodium chloride (NaCl), used extensively as a condiment and preservative.
   2. (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.

Declension

Synonyms

• bordssalt

Derived terms

• bergsalt
• havssalt
• medelhavssalt
• saltlake
• saltkristall
• saltstänkt
• saltsyra
• strö salt i såren (“rub salt in the wounds”)
• ta med en nypa salt (“take with a grain of salt”)
• vägsalt

Related terms

• salta
• sälta

References

• salt in Svensk ordbok (SO)
• salt in Svenska Akademiens ordlista (SAOL)
• salt in Svenska Akademiens ordbok (SAOB)

Anagrams

• last, lats, stal, tals

Turkish

Etymology

From Proto-Turkic *sal- (“to unleash”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /saɫt/

Adverb

salt

1. exclusively, only, just, absolute

   salt çoğunluk

   absolute majority

Synonyms

• bir
• sadece
• sırf
• tek
• yalnız
• (absolute) mutlak

Related terms

• salmak

Further reading

• “salt”, in Turkish dictionaries, Türk Dil Kurumu