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English
Verb
salt the mine (third-person singular simple present salts the mine, present participle salting the mine, simple past and past participle salted the mine)
- Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see salt, the, mine.
1989, John Burke, The Legend of Baby Doe: The Life and Times of the Silver Queen of the West, U of Nebraska Press, →ISBN, page 53:He then discovered that Lovell had salted the mine with ore from the Little Pittsburgh.
2000, Robert Greene, The 48 Laws of Power, Penguin Books, page 159:They then salted the “mine” with these gems, which the first expert dug up and brought to San Francisco.
2014, Harriet Hudson, The Wooing of Katie May, Hachette UK, →ISBN:Smith had merely dug a shaft, salted the mine with a good grade ore, in order to lure Jeremiah into purchasing.
2010, Michael Stanley, A Carrion Death, Hachette UK, →ISBN:"Ferraz then salted the mine with the quality diamonds from Angola," Kubu continued, "making it look as though De Beers had made a mistake."
- (by extension) To set up a confidence trick; to plant false evidence of the value of something.
1954, P.G. Wodehouse, Bertie Wooster Sees It Through, Simon and Schuster, →ISBN, page 86:"Yes. I thought it would be a shrewd move to salt the mine." I didn't get this. She seemed to me an aunt who was talking in riddles.
2005, Paul Lindsay, The Big Scam: A Novel of the FBI, Simon and Schuster, →ISBN, page 275:“Salting the mine. We'll salt the mine.” Egan still didn't seem to understand. “You college boys, all that training and you can't see the nose on your face. We'll plant a body.”
2006, Steven T. Katz, Alan Rosen, Elie Wiesel, Obliged by Memory: Literature, Religion, Ethics, Syracuse University Press, →ISBN, page 64:Historians are duty bound never to salt the mine of history by the creation of ersatz facts introduced to fulfill their preconceived ideas.
2007, Ira Nottonson, Forming a Partnership : And Making It Work, Entrepreneur Press, →ISBN, page 4:His rationale was the same: these were amenities that a salesperson needed to salt the mine and make the right impression on customers.