| 释义 |
▪ I. salt, n.1|sɒlt, -ɔː-|
Forms: 1 sealt, (3 salit, Ormin sallt), 4–6 salte, (5 sawte, 6 saulte), 6–7 sault, 8–9 Sc. saut, sawt, 1– salt.
[Com. Teut.: OE. sealt (salt) str. neut. = OFris. *salt (mod.Fris. salt, sâ(l)t, saut, solt), OS. salt (MLG. salt, solt), MDu., Du. zout, OHG. (MHG., G.) salz, ON. (Sw., Da.), Goth. salt:—OTeut. saltom, cogn. with Gr. ἅλ-ς masc., L. sal masc., neut. (whence F. sel, Sp., Pg., Pr. sal, It. sale), OIr. salann, W. halen, OSl. solĭ.]
1. a. A substance, known chemically as sodium chloride (NaCl), very abundant in nature both in solution and in crystalline form, and extensively prepared for use as a condiment, a preservative of animal food, and in various industrial processes. Salt for domestic use is manufactured from sea-salt (marine-salt, bay-salt), rock-salt (mineral salt, † salt mineral), and (now chiefly) from brine pumped up from rock-salt strata. Frequently called common salt.
c1000Sax. Leechd. II. 76 Wiþ blæce, wyl eolonan on buteran, meng wiþ sote, sealt, teoro. Ibid. 344 Do haliᵹes sealtes fela on. c1200Ormin 1653 Forr witt & skill iss wel inoh Þurrh salltess smacc bitacnedd. c1290S. Eng. Leg. 187/95 So þat þe salt scholde is woundene frete with þe brenninde fuyre. 1398Trevisa Barth. De P.R. xvi. xciv. (Bodl. MS.), Salte makeþ potage and oþer mete sauourye. 14..Pol. Rel. & L. Poems (1903) 245 Nad I ben babtyzyd in water and salt. c1460J. Russell Bk. Nurture 57 Loke þy salte be sutille, whyte, fayre and drye. 1557Seager Sch. Vertue 440 in Babees Bk., Saulte with thy knyfe then reache and take. 1620Venner Via Recta vi. 92 The best and most common of all Sauces is Salt. 1661J. Childrey Brit. Bacon. 50 They boile Salt out of Salt⁓water. 1729[see salt-cellar]. 1774Goldsm. Nat. Hist. (1776) VII. 146 Salt seems to be much more efficacious in destroying these animals [sc. lizards], than the knife. 1833–4J. Phillips Geol. in Encycl. Metrop. (1845) VI. 614/2 Regular strata of gypsum below, and regular layers of salt above. 1839Ure Dict. Arts 1087 The rock is a mass of saccharoid and anhydrous gypsum, imbued with common salt. 1870Yeats Nat. Hist. Comm. 380 Beds of salt occur..in China, and many districts of North America.
b. With qualifying word.
white salt: salt prepared and refined mainly for household use (as contrasted with rock-salt, which is of a brownish red colour). † great salt: salt in large crystals or lumps; rock-salt. † small salt: salt powdered as for table use. † Pattow salt, Pateu salt [i.e. Poitou salt = F. ‘sel de Poictou, blacke salt, gray salt’ Cotgr.]: ? a coarse kind of salt manufactured in Poitou. Also Newcastle salt, Spanish salt.
c1000Sax. Leechd. I. 138 Cnuca mid greatan sealte. Ibid. III. 20 Ado..hwites sealtes fela. 1377–8Durham Acc. Rolls (Surtees) 586 In 2 quar. de Pattowsalt, 7s. 3d. 1390Gower Conf. II. 63 In stede of Oxes He let do yoken grete foxes, And with gret salt the lond he siew. 1486Bk. St. Albans C vj, Put therto spanyshe salte. 1583–4Reg. Privy Council Scot. Ser. i. III. 638 Na small salt sould be careit furth of this realme. 1614T. Gentleman Eng. Way to Win Wealth 24 Ships may come vnto them with Salt from Mayo, or Spanish salt. 1728Chambers Cycl. s.v., The Salt is brown when taken out of the Pits,..in some Places they make it into White-Salt by refining. 1748Brownrigg Art of Making Salt 50 Northumberland and Durham; from whence this salt is exported in large quantities, under the name of Newcastle salt. 1883Fisheries Exhib. Catal. 74 Fishery Salt..Common Salt, Middle Grain Salt, Table Salt,..Kitchen Salt. 1886Encycl. Brit. XXVI. 232/1 As usually made, white salt from rock-salt may be classified into two groups.
†c. salt upon salt: see quot. 1748. Obs.
1580Hitchcock Politic Plat A ij b, To..barrill theim [sc. herrings] after the Flemishe maner, with salte vpon salte, whiche is the beste kinde of Salt. 1614T. Gentleman Eng. Way to Win Wealth 24 This place [sc. Ipswich] is also most conuenient for the erecting of Salt-pans, for the making of Salt vpon salt. 1682J. Collins Salt & Fishery 13 Of Salt upon Salt, or Salt made by Refining of Forreign Salt. 1748Brownrigg Art of Making Salt 49 Salt upon salt; which is bay salt dissolved in sea water, or any other salt water, and with it boiled into white salt.
fig.1659G. Wither (title) Salt upon Salt: made out of certain ingenious verses upon the late Storm and the death of his Highness ensuing.
d. in salt: sprinkled with salt or immersed in brine; in pickle.
1853A. Soyer Pantroph. 187 Let it remain in salt during twenty-four hours.
2. Proverbial and allusive uses.
a. gen.
1539Taverner Erasm. Prov. (1552) 57 Passe not ouer salt and the table: as who shulde saye, neglecte not the Company of frendes, or breake not the lawe of amitie. c1589R. Harvey Pl. Perc. (1860) 9 Seruice without salt, by the rite of England, is a Cuckholds fee, if he claime it. 1596Harington Metam. Ajax (1814) 3 The poor sheep would eat him without salt (as they say). c1678Marvell Growth Popery 23 As much out of order, as if the Salt had been thrown down, or an Hare had crossed his way. 1681J. Flavel Meth. Grace iii. 50 Some account the falling of salt upon the table ominous. 1865S. Evans Bro. Fab. MS., etc. 49 If the salt thou chance to spill, Token sure of coming ill. 1884Harper's Mag. Nov. 889/1 They threw the salt over their shoulders,..in propitiation of evil powers, when they spilled it at table.
b. Taken as a type of a necessary adjunct to food, and hence as a symbol of hospitality. Phr. to eat salt with (a person), to eat (a person's) salt: to enjoy his hospitality; also occas. to be dependent upon him. bread and salt: see bread n. 2 d.
1382Wyclif Ezra iv. 14 Wee thanne mynde hauende of the salt that in the paleis wee eeten. 1539Taverner Erasm. Prov. 30 Trust no man onles thou hast fyrst eaten a bushel of salte with hym. [Cf. Gr. τῶν ἁλῶν συγκατεδηδοκέναι µέδιµνον.] 1581G. Pettie tr. Guazzo's Civ. Conv. i. (1586) 11 b, You who haue eaten much salt out of your owne house. 1608Bp. Hall Epist. i. viii, Abandon those from your table and salt, whom your own..experience shall descry dangerous. 1809Wellington in Gleig Life App. (1862) 702 The real fact is..I have eaten the King's salt. 1813Byron Corsair ii. iv, Why dost thou shun the salt? that sacred pledge, Which, once partaken..Makes ev'n contending tribes in peace unite. 1854Thackeray Newcomes I. v. 43 One does not eat a man's salt, as it were, at these dinners. There is nothing sacred in this kind of London hospitality. 1889Norris Miss Shafto i, One has no business to eat a man's salt and then say nasty things about him.
c. In allusions to the jocular advice given to children to catch birds by putting salt on their tails.
1580Lyly Euphues (Arb.) 327 It is..a foolish bird that staieth the laying salt on hir taile. 1664Butler Hud. ii. i. 278 Such great Atchievements cannot fail, To cast Salt on a Woman's Tail. 1704Swift T. Tub vii, Men catch Knowledge by throwing their Wit on the Posteriors of a Book, as Boys do Sparrows by flinging Salt upon their Tails. 1721Kelly Scot. Prov. 380 You will ne'er cast Salt on his Tail. That is, he has clean escap'd. 1813Southey Nelson viii, If they go on playing this game, some day we shall lay salt upon their tails. 1840Dickens Barn. Rudge xxvii, Having dropped a pinch of salt on the tails of all the cardinal virtues and caught them every one. 1893Stevenson Catriona i. viii, I will never be persuaded that you could not help us..to put salt on Alan's tail.
d. with a grain of salt [= mod.L. cum grano salis]: (to accept a statement) with a certain amount of reserve. Also in similar phrases, now esp. with a pinch of salt.
1647Trapp Comm. Rev. vi. 11 This is to be taken with a grain of salt. 1648Sparke Pref. to Shute's Sarah & Hagar b j b, Read them then but with such a grain of salt as intimated. 1883American VI. 280 An Extremist,—and we may add more or less salt to his expressions. 1908Athenæum 1 Aug. 118/1 Our reasons for not accepting the author's pictures of early Ireland without many grains of salt. 1948F. R. Cowell Cicero & Roman Republic xvi. 243 A more critical spirit slowly developed, so that Cicero and his friends took more than the proverbial pinch of salt before swallowing everything written by these earlier authors. 1949V. Grove Language Bar ii. 29 Even if we accept such a statement with a pinch of salt, it is an undisputable fact that its writer did look upon Latin as a guiding mistress. 1965M. Shadbolt Among Cinders xxvi. 258, I take what he says with a half-pound of salt, after his review of that play. 1981J. S. Bratton Impact of Victorian Children's Fiction ii. 41 We must take William Jones's enthusiasm about the eagerness of [tract] readers with a pinch of salt.
e. With reference to the bitter saline taste of tears.
1595Shakes. John v. vii. 45 Hen. Oh that there were some vertue in my teares, That might releeue you. John. The salt in them is hot. 1602― Ham. i. ii. 154 The salt of most vnrighteous Teares. 1824Galt Rothelan I. i. v. 43 There was salt as well as sorrow in her tears.
f. not to be made of sugar or salt: not to be readily affected by moisture; hence, not to be disconcerted by wet weather.
1786Har'st Rig lxxxi. (1794) 27 But Highlanders ne'er mind a douk, For they're na'e sawt. 1855Carlyle in E. Fitz-Gerald's Lett. (1889) I. 235, I persist in believing the weather will clear,..at any rate I am not made of sugar or of salt. 1870M. Bridgman R. Lynne I. xv. 254, I am made neither of sugar nor salt... Do you call this rain?
g. (to be) worth one's salt: efficient or capable. Usually with expressed or implied negative.
1830Marryat King's Own lii, The captain..is not worth his salt. 1857Hughes Tom Brown ii. v, Every one who is worth his salt has his enemies. 1883Stevenson Treas. Isl. xviii, It was plain from every line of his body that our new hand was worth his salt.
h. With reference to the saltness of the sea, in phrases denoting fondness for or adaptability to a seafaring life. (Cf. 11.)
1886Illustr. Lond. News 10 July 42/3, ‘I would be a sailor, if only before the mast’. ‘Why there!’ cried the admiral... ‘What else could the boy be? He is salt all through’. 1901Daily Chron. 24 May 3/3 The man..with the salt in his blood, and a yearning for the blue water.
i. to rub salt in one's wounds: to behave or speak to someone so as to aggravate a hurt already inflicted.
1944[see curl v.1 1 c]. 1967Wodehouse Company for Henry x. 182 He could see that Henry was deeply stirred, and he had no wish to rub salt in his wounds. 1973Guardian 16 Feb. 13/8 Mr. Nixon's treatment for war wounds is rubbing salt in them.
3. fig.
a. the salt of the earth (after Matt. v. 13): the excellent of the earth; formerly, in trivial use, the powerful, aristocratic, or wealthy; now also applied to a person or persons of great worthiness, reliability, honesty, etc.
c950Lindisf. Gosp. Matt. v. 13 Ᵹee sint salt eorðes. c1386Chaucer Sompn. T. 488 Ye been the salt of the erthe and the savour. c142026 Pol. Poems xxi. 145 Of erþe ȝe ben cleped salt, For salt of wisdom soule saues. 1579Lyly Euphues (Arb.) 141 The vniuersities of Christendome which should be..the leauen, the salt, the seasoning of the world. 1790H. Venn in Carus Life C. Simeon 84 They are the truly excellent of the earth—its salt, who..reach the heart and conscience. 1842Literary Gaz. 28 May 371/3 To dine like queens, kings, princes, potentates, and the other ‘salt of the earth’. 1869Rawlinson Anc. Hist. 517 The army was, under the Imperial system, the ‘salt’ of the Roman world. 1871Morley Carlyle in Crit. Misc. Ser. i. (1878) 195 A little band, the supposed salt of the earth. 1916G. B. Shaw Androcles & Lion p. xv, They may not be the salt of the earth, these Philistines; but they are the substance of civilization. 1931T. R. G. Lyell Slang, Phrase & Idiom 659 If he's a friend of yours, you're a lucky man, for if ever a fellow was one of the salt of the earth, he is. He's the best man I've ever met, in every way. 1948E. S. Gardner D.A. takes Chance x. 103 Eve was a mighty fine girl, and her mother is the salt of the earth. 1951E. M. Forster Two Cheers for Democracy i. 56 If you don't like people, kill them, banish them, segregate them, and then strut up and down proclaiming that you are the salt of the earth. 1953Wodehouse Performing Flea 78 You dine with the President on Monday, and he slaps you on the back and tells you you are the salt of the earth, and on Tuesday morning you get a letter from him saying you are fired. 1976N. Thornburg Cutter & Bone vi. 148 And such good friends they were too. Real salt of the earth.
b. That which gives liveliness, freshness, or piquancy to a person's character, life, etc. Often in phr. salt of youth, from Shakespeare.
1579Tomson Calvin's Serm. Tim. 688/1 They are such that haue neither salt nor sause in them. 1598Shakes. Merry W. ii. iii. 56 Wee haue some salt of our youth in vs. 1698Norris Pract. Disc. (1707) IV. 26 The Things of Religion, that Divine Salt, that will give a wholesome and relishing savour to our Conversation. a1718Penn Tracts in Wks. (1726) I. 732 A Man insipid, of no Sense or Salt. 1822Hazlitt Table-t. II. ii. 24 His character has the salt of honesty about it. 1865Trollope Belton Est. xiv. 153 He was a man not yet forty years of age, with still much of the salt of youth about him. 1879M. Arnold Mixed Ess., Democracy 19 A people without the salt of these qualities would arrive at the pettiness of China.
c. That which gives life or pungency to discourse or written composition; poignancy of expression; pungent wit; † point. Attic salt: see Attic a. 2.
1573–80Baret Alv. s.v., Salte, a pleasaunt and mery worde that maketh folke to laugh and sometimes pricketh. 1609Shaks.'s Tr. & Cr. Ep. (Qo. 1), So much and such sauored salt of witte is in his Commedies, that [etc.]. 1639Mayne City Match ii. iii, She speaks with salt, And has a pretty scornefulnesse. 1645Milton Tetrach. 63 Exceptions are not logically deduc't from a divers kind, as to say who so puts away for any naturall cause except fornication, the exception would want salt. 1682Shadwell Medal of J. Bayes 2 For Libel and true Satyr different be; This must have Truth, and Salt, with Modesty. a1694Tillotson Serm. clxiii. (1743) IX. 3884 He..could with salt and sharpness enough upbraid those whom he sees guilty of them. 1734tr. Rollin's Anc. Hist. V. 75 The prince comprehended all the salt and spirit of that ingenious pleasantry. 1766Fordyce Serm. Yng. Women II. viii. 20 That salt and poignancy..derived from writers of taste. 1874Q. Rev. CXXXVII. 106 Humour, the salt of well-bred conversation. 1894K. Grahame Pagan Papers 120 We could not discover any salt in them [sc. the witticisms].
†4. Alch. and Old Chem. One of the supposed ultimate elements of all substances. Obs.
c1585J. Hester tr. Paracelsus' 114 Exper., etc. C 8, These three mercurie, Salt and Sulphur can not bee one without another. 1605,1729[see mercury n. 8]. 1650French tr. Paracelsus' Nat. Things 10 Mercury, Sulphur, Salt, of which all the seven Metalls are generated. For Mercury is the Spirit, Sulphur the Soule, and Salt the Body. 1651― Distill. vi. 181 Salt is that fixt permanent earth which is in the center of every thing that is incorruptible, and inalterable. 1670D. Cable tr. Basil. Valent. Of Nat. & Supernat. Things viii. 124 [Tin] hath no excess of Mercury, nor of Salt, and it hath the least of Sulphur in it. 1719Quincy Lex. Physico-Med. s.v. Principle.
5. Old Chem.
†a. A solid soluble non-inflammable substance having a taste. Obs.
The name originally comprised such substances as resembled common salt (sense 1) in their appearance or properties, e.g. substances produced by the evaporation of watery liquids as salt is produced by the evaporation of sea-water. The quality of the taste was not originally considered to be a criterion of the class, but was added in the 18th c., when these substances were ultimately divided into ‘acid salts’ (salia acida), ‘alkaline salts’ (salia alkalina), and ‘neutral salts’ (salia neutra, media, or salsa), corresponding to the modern ‘acids’, ‘alkalis’, and ‘salts’.
1426Lydg. De Guil. Pilgr. 15632, I..Yive hem vergows and vynegre..And yive hem other sawtys mo. 1594Plat Jewell-ho. ii. 10 Coppers..Niter..vitrial..allom..Borras,..Suger..Sublimate..Saltpeter..all these are diuers kindes of saltes. 1626Bacon Sylva §645 Out of the Ashes of all Plants, they extract a Salt which they use in Medecines. 1686W. Harris tr. Lemery's Course Chem. i. xiv. 347 If there were any Salt in this petrified Plant, it would dissolve in hot water like other salts. 1707Curios. in Husb. & Gard. 219 Sugar is a balsamick Salt. 1729Woodward Nat. Hist. Fossils i. I. 98 The Vitriolic Salts, with which the Pyrites abounds. 1774Goldsm. Nat. Hist. I. 166 By divesting a quantity of earth of all its oils and salts. 1797Encycl. Brit. (ed. 3) IV. 599 Salts..are soluble in water, sapid, and not inflammable. They are either Acids or Alkalies.
b. Particular substances of this class are distinguished by defining words (q.v., and cf. sal1); e.g. † salt ammoniac (= sal-ammoniac), † essential s., † fixed s., † s. perlate, † s. sedative, volatile s.; † salt of antimony, † salt of Mars, † salt of Saturn, salt of soda, † salt of steel, † salt of wisdom; † salt anatron, † s. gem(me (= sal-gem), † s. prunel(la (= sal-prunella), † s. nitre (= sal-nitre), † salt sode (= sal-soda), † s. tartar; Glauber's salt, Rochelle s., etc. salt of lemon, potassium hydrogen oxalate, used to remove ink-stains and iron-mould from linen; Carlsbad salt (or Karlsbad salt), Vichy salts, salts prepared from the mineral springs in these places, or imitations of them; Everitt's salt (see quot. 1939); † Preston salts, a variety of smelling-salts.
a1400Stockholm Med. MS. 4 A water þat is clepyd salt gemme. 14..Chaucer's Can. Yeom. Prol. & T. 257 (Corpus & Petw. MSS.), Salt tartre. 1526Grete Herball cccciii. (1529) Y j b, Salt armeniake is hote and drye in the fourth degre. Ibid. Y ij, Salt gemme..hath the vertues of salt armonyake. 1565Cooper Thesaurus s.v. Ammoniacus, Salte armonike. 1580Lyle Euphues (Arb.) 439 Salt Sode for Glasse. 1601Holland Pliny II. 133 If some salt-nitre be put to them whiles they be a boiling ouer the fire. 1670D. Cable tr. van Suchten's Secr. Antimony 118 This Salt of Antimony..performs almost all that the Salt of Gold doth. 1741Compl. Fam.-Piece i. ii. 180 An Ounce of beaten Salt⁓prunel. 1756Wright in Phil. Trans. XLIX. 681 Fossil sea-salt or salt-gem. 1765Delaval ibid. LV. 31 note f, A solution of salt-ammoniac. 1810New Family Receipt-bk. 349 Essential Salt of Lemons. 1839Ure Dict. Arts 1084 Salt of amber is succinic acid. Salt of lemons is citric acid. 1858P. L. Simmonds Dict. Trade Products, Preston-salts,..smelling-salts..containing carbonate of ammonia in small pieces, with a drachm of the following mixture added, viz. oils of bergamot, cloves, and lavender, and the strongest solution of ammonia. 1866Chambers's Encycl. VIII. 453/2 The celebrated Preston smelling-salts are scented with oils of cloves and pimento. 1868Ibid. X. 75/2 Ink-stains..require to be taken out with..the essential salts of lemon. 1890Billings Med. Dict. I. 482/1 Everitt's salt, a compound of cyanide of iron and potassium, formed when potassium ferrocyanide is decomposed by sulphuric acid. 1895Army & Navy Co-op Soc. Price List 15 Sept. 696/1 Carlsbad Salts. Ibid. 710/2 Vichy Salts, Effervescing. 1901To-Day 1 Aug. 38/1 ‘Eisiklene Hat Wash’, which I find far superior to oxalic acid, salts of lemon, or any of the usual articles used for the purpose. 1908Chem. Abstr. II. 3126 Artificial crystallized ‘Karlsbad salts’ as sold on the market is really impure Na2SO4. 1939Thorpe's Dict. Appl. Chem. (ed. 4) III. 471/2 Ferrous potassium ferrocyanide, K2Fe[Fe(CN)6], (Everitt's salt) is produced by heating saturated potassium ferrocyanide solution for 40 hours at 90°C with an equal volume of 20% sulphuric acid. 1960Chem. Abstr. LIV. 8120/2 Hexametaphosphate..combined with 34% Vichy salts..gives a detergent which restores the original whiteness of superpolyamide textiles. 1977Martindale's Extra Pharmacopoeia (ed. 27) 1459/1 Artificial Carlsbad Salt... A crystallised preparation of sodium sulphate 55, potassium sulphate 1, sodium chloride 10, and sodium carbonate 35. Ibid., Artificial Vichy Salt. Anhydrous sodium sulphate 40, anhydrous sodium phosphate 20, potassium bicarbonate 35, sodium chloride 75, sodium bicarbonate 830.
c. colloq. pl. (a) Smelling salts, consisting usually of ammonium carbonate.
1741Richardson Pamela II. 247 Mrs. Jewkes held her Salts to my Nose, and I did not faint. 1767Woman of Fashion I. 73 [She] was several Times obliged to have recourse to her Salts. 1817Byron Beppo lxxxix, Much hartshorn, salts, and sprinkling faces. 1840Marryat Poor Jack xiv, Virginia had run for the salts as soon as she perceived that her mother was unwell.
(b) Short for Epsom salts (see Epsom). Also, like a dose of salts: see dose n. 2 c.
1772Chron. in Ann. Reg. 98/1 A servant maid..thinking to take some salts..took arsenic instead thereof. 1877N.W. Linc. Gloss. 1887Service Life Dr. Duguid xix, A neffow [= nieveful] of salts and a neffow of senna.
6. Mod. Chem. A compound formed by the union of an acid radical with a basic radical; an acid having the whole or part of its hydrogen replaced by a metal. (In wider theoretical use the term ‘salt’ includes acids as salts of hydrogen.) Also, † ethereal salt, an ester.
The first marked step towards the modern conception of a chemical salt was Rouelle's definition (a 1770) of a neutral salt as a compound formed by the union of an acid with any substance serving as a base for it and giving to it a concrete or solid form. Various modifications of this or earlier views were put forward until the publication of Lavoisier's definition of a salt as the union of an acid with an oxide; this definition, however, was found to be inadequate when the composition of the halogen compounds, sulphides, etc. came to be accurately known. A further revolution in the theory of salts was made by Berzelius, who divided them into two classes; viz. haloid salts, formed of an electropositive element and a halogen, and amphid salts, resulting from the union of an acid and a base; the latter he subdivided into oxy-salts, sulpho-salts, selenio-salts, and telluri-salts. According to more recent conceptions (Arrhenius 1888) salts, including acids, are regarded as composed of positive ions or cations (hydrogen and metals) and negative ions or anions (halogens and acid radicals).
1790Kerr tr. Lavoisier's Elem. Chem. 150–1 Acids may therefore be considered as true salifying principles... This view of the acids prevents me from considering them as salts... I shall not arrange the alkalies or earths in the class of salts, to which I allot only such as are composed of an oxygenated substance united to a base. 1807T. Thomson Chem. (ed. 3) II. 151 [Acids] combine with all the alkalies, and most of the metallic oxides and earths, and form with them those compounds which are called salts. 1838― Chem. Org. Bodies 924 The tannin of areca gives a black colour to salts of iron. 1855T. F. Hardwich Photogr. Chem. 15 The principal Salts of Silver which are employed in the Photographic processes are four in number, viz. Nitrate of Silver, Chloride of Silver, Iodide of Silver, and Bromide of Silver. 1859Todd's Cycl. Anat. V. 332/1 Most of the blood⁓salts are present in increased quantity in the gastric juice. 1876Encycl. Brit. V. 553/2 The thio-acids also form ethereal salts. 1890Walker tr. Ostwald's Outl. Gen. Chem. 281 The conductivities of the neutral salts are additively composed of two values, one depending only on the metal or positive ion, the other only on the acid radical or negative ion. 1905Goodchild & Tweney Technol. & Sci. Dict. 633/2 Salts like ethyl acetate, derived from an organic acid and an alcohol, or from an alcohol and an inorganic acid, are called ethereal salts or esters.
7. a. = salt-cellar.
1493in Somerset Med. Wills (1901) 310 To John Wymer and Margarete his wif a cuppe and a salt of silver. 1495Trevisa's Barth. De P.R. vi. xxii. 212 Knyues spones & saltes [Bodl. MS. salers] ben sett on y⊇ borde. 1531Rec. St. Mary at Hill (1905) 47 Two Rownde saltes with a Couer. 1605B. Jonson Volpone v. iii, One salt of agat. 1663Pepys Diary 29 Oct., Under every salt there was a bill of fare. 1775in Picton L'pool Munic. Rec. (1886) II. 199 Eight silver salts for the Corporation. 1821Scott Kenilw. xxxii, Another salt was fashioned of silver, in form of a swan in full sail. 1894Times 7 Apr. 9/5 A pair of hexagonal salts, of Limoges enamel.
b. above (or below, beneath, under) the salt: at the upper (or lower) part of the table, i.e. among the more honoured (or less honoured) guests.
The reference is to the formerly prevailing custom of placing a large salt-cellar in the middle of a dining table.
1597Bp. Hall Sat. ii. vi, That he do, on no default, Euer presume to sit aboue the salt. 1599B. Jonson Cynthia's Rev. ii. ii. (1616) 200 Hee neuer drinkes below the salt. 1602Dekker Honest Wh. D, Set him beneath the salt and let him not touch a bit, till euery one has had his full cut. 1658Wit Restor'd 43 Hee..humbly sate Below the Salt, and munch'd his Sprat. 1826Hone Every-day Bk. I. 1333 The marshals were the lowest above the salt. 1870Lowell Study Wind. 347 At the banquet of fame they sit below the salt. 1885J. Payn Luck of Darrells xxxvii, Though of Tory sentiments, she by no means approved of those feudal times when the chaplain was placed below the salt.
8. A salt marsh or salting.
1621in Boys Hist. Sandwich (1792) 705 Two acres of salts, overagainst the old crane.., granted to John Gason..for the erecting of his waterworks. 1709Lond. Gaz. No. 4525/4, 164 Acres of fresh Marsh, and 10 Acres of Salts, well water'd. 1796Morse Amer. Geog. I. 698 Immediately after you leave the salts, begin the valuable rice swamps. 1836W. D. Cooper Prov. Sussex, Salts, marshes near the sea flooded by the tides. 1900Academy 28 Apr. 364/2 There remains on her seaward front [sc. of Rye], that green space the Salts.
9. pl. Salt water entering a river from the sea.
1658R. Franck North. Mem. (1694) 173 Here the Salmon relinquish the Salts because by the Porposses pursued up the Freshes. 1828–32Webster, Salts, the salt water of rivers entering from the ocean. S. Carolina. 1856Olmsted Slave States 469 ‘Freshes’ and ‘salts’. 1883G. C. Davies Norfolk Broads xxxii. 225 The last incursion of the salts was seven years ago. 1897Westm. Gaz. 14 Dec. 10/2 The stormy weather and high tides, which have caused ‘salts’, i.e. the forcing of the sea water up the rivers.
10. At Eton, money collected for the Captain at the Montem. Now Hist.
See Brand's Pop. Antiq. 1813 I. 337 seqq., and Maxwell Lyte Hist. Eton Coll. (1889) 507 seqq.
a1769in Brand's Pop. Antiq. (1813) I. 345 note, Every scholar gives a shilling for Salt; the noblemen more. 1806D. & S. Lysons Magna Brit. I. 558 Tickets inscribed with some motto..are given to such persons as have already paid for salt, as a security from any further demands. 1825C. M. Westmacott Eng. Spy I. 75 As long as salt and sock abound. 1899C. K. Paul Memories 113 The sixth-form..stopped coaches, post-chaises, and carriages,..asking for ‘Salt’.
11. colloq. A sailor, esp. one of much experience. (Cf. 2 h.)
1840R. H. Dana Bef. Mast i, My complexion and hands were quite enough to distinguish me from the regular salt. 1877Spurgeon Serm. XXIII. 416 If you want to hear about the sea, talk to an ‘old salt’. 1884‘H. Collingwood’ Under Meteor Flag iii, The ‘green’ hands..had been very judiciously intermingled with the experienced ‘salts’.
12. attrib. and Comb.
a. Simple attrib., as salt-backet (Sc.), salt barrow (barrow n.3 3), salt bed, salt boat, salt brig, salt coffer, salt crystal, salt district, salt gauge, salt girnel, salt incrustation, salt manufacture, salt market, salt monopoly, salt pannier, salt room, salt shop, salt shovel, salt-spoon (hence salt-spoonful), salt spring, salt trough, salt vase, salt-warehouse; also (sense 5 c (a)), salts-bottle.
b. objective, instrumental, similative, etc., as salt-boiler, salt-burner, salt-cured, salt-curing, salt-heaver, salt holder, salt-incrusted, salt-laden, salt-loving, salt manufacturer, salt owner, salt-resembling, salt-seller, salt-spilling, salt-white (also as adj.), salt-worker; salt-blue, salt-bright, salt-caked, salt-eaten, salt-free, salt-licked, salt-strewn, salt-tanged, salt-wavy, salt-worn adjs.
1756Pennecuik Coll. 47, I spake nae mair than our *salt-backit. 1881W. Gregor Folk-lore Scot. ix. 51 A wooden box in the shape of a house, with a round hole in the exposed end; it was the saat-backet.
1610Holland Camden's Brit. (1637) 608 Certaine women..put it [sc. salt] in baskets, they call them *Salt barowes, out of which the liquor runneth, and the pure salt remaineth.
1886Encycl. Brit. XXI. 230/1 The Cheshire and Worcestershire *salt-beds are by some attributed to the Permian.
1922*Salt-blue [see sea-death s.v. sea n. 18 d].
1791R. Mylne Rep. Thames & Isis 51 The Droitwich *Salt boat stopt here. 1748*Salt-boiler [see salt-officer in 12 c.].
1897Kipling Capt. Cour. viii, The Jersey *salt-brigs.
1930E. Pound XXX Cantos xvii. 79 And in her hands sea⁓wrack *Salt-bright with the foam.
1910G. T. Zoëga Conc. Dict. Old Icelandic 346/2 [Salt]-karl,..*salt-burner. 1975C. Fell tr. Egil's Saga iv. 5 Those who worked in the forests and the salt-burners and all those who hunt..had to pay his taxes.
1903J. Masefield Ballads 19 Dirty British coaster with a *salt-caked smoke stack.
1859Geo. Eliot A. Bede vi, Where the only chance of collecting a few grains of dust would be to climb on the *salt⁓coffer.
1886Encycl. Brit. XXI. 233/2 The mother-liquor..becomes..totally unfit for further service after yielding but two or three crops of *salt crystals.
1883C. A. Moloney W. African Fisheries 40 (Fish. Exhib. Publ.) *Salt-cured fish during the ‘scarce season’.
Ibid., *Salt-curing..is somewhat resorted to, as is also ‘smoking’.
1833–4J. Phillips Geol. in Encycl. Metrop. (1845) VI. 615/2 The ancient hydrography of the *salt districts.
1916Joyce Portrait of Artist (1969) iv. 170 Picking a pointed *salteaten stick out of the jetsam among the rocks, he clambered down the slope of the breakwater.
1909Practitioner Dec. 867 When nephritis occurs, the child is given milk for some days, and then a *salt-free diet, or at least one poor in salt. 1977J. Cheever Falconer 49 A salt-free diet.. no salt added.
1864Webster, *Salt⁓gauge, an instrument used to test the strength of brine or salt⁓water.
c1688Dallas Stiles 584 Salt-Pans, and *Salt-Girnals..lying in the said Parochin.
1892Labour Commission Gloss., *Salt heavers, men who discharge the salt from the barges by heaving or throwing it up, either upon the deck..or into a tub.
1834Lytton Pompeii i. iii, In the centre of the table, at the corners of which stood the Lares and the *saltholders.
1840Penny Cycl. XVII. 471/1 Great tracts of the plain are covered with *salt incrustations.
1856Times 5 May 5/2 The margin of the *salt-incrusted shallows of the Dead Sea.
1878Smiles Robt. Dick iii. 25 He enjoyed the *salt-laden breath.
1962A. Sampson Anat. of Britain xvi. 264 In the past the air force has been led by aviators, as the navy has been led by *saltlicked admirals.
1849Johnston Exp. Agric. 142 *Salt-loving plants.
1836Rep. Comm. Salt Brit. India 24 The Bullooah molunghees found that the *salt manufacture..was no longer so profitable as of old.
Ibid. App. 143 a, Two Petitions of *Salt Manufacturers in the Agency of Tumlook.
1477in Charters, etc. Edin. (1871) 140 The *salt market to be haldin in Nudreis Wynde.
1790Burke Fr. Rev. 332 The provinces which had been always exempted from this *salt-monopoly.
1673in Lauderdale Papers (Camden Soc.) II. 244 The good of the kingdome, the King's profite, and the interest of the *salt⁓owners.
1530in Ancestor Oct. (1904) 182 A staffe or in his hande and a *salt panyer v[ert] at his backe.
1611Cotgr., Nitre, Niter; a (*Salt-resembling) substance of colour light-ruddie, or white.
1809Kendall Trav. II. xlvi. 133 The water is now drawn into the last range of vats or rooms, called *salt-rooms.
1847Mrs. Gore Castles in Air II. iv. 89 My mother sat..with her *salts' bottle in her hand. 1848Thackeray Van. Fair xiv, Madly inhaling her salts-bottle.
1611Cotgr., Saulnier, a Salter, *Salt-seller, Marchant of salt.
Ibid., Saulnerie, a *Salt-shop, or Garner for salt.
1709Female Tatler No. 3/2 Tea-Cups, Sugar-Tongs, *Salt-Shovels, and Gloves made up in Wall-nut⁓shells.
1833L. Ritchie Wand. by Loire 153 The sin of *salt-spilling.
1820M. Edgeworth Let. 4 June (1979) 144 *Salt spoons never to be seen. 1858Ramsay Scot. Life & Char. iii. 33 Last time Mrs. Murray dined here, we lost a salt-spoon. 1872Calverley Fly Leaves 15 O'er hard-boil'd eggs the saltspoon shook.
1837Dickens Pickw. xlviii. 518 Tom Smart beat him in the drinking by about half a *salt-spoon-full. 1844H. Stephens Bk. Farm II. 356 A salt-spoonful of salt. 1904Queen 30 Jan. 211/3 A salt⁓spoonful of powdered cloves.
1892W. B. Yeats Countess Kathleen i. 24 My curse upon the *salt-strewn road of monks.
1933W. de la Mare Fleeting 119 This wide *salt-tanged vast of air.
1832Scoreby Farm Rep. 18 in Libr. Usef. Knowl., Husb. III, A *salt-trough, and a sheep-rack for hay, should be found with every flock.
1829Landor Imag. Conv., Pitt & Canning, From every *salt⁓vase a spoonful.
1883‘Mark Twain’ Life on Mississippi xli. 423 The old brick *salt-warehouses clustered at the upper end of the city. 1912E. Pound Ripostes 27 That I on high streams The *salt-wavy tumult traverse alone.
1855Bailey Mystic, etc. 78 Kerman's sands *salt-white. 1922Joyce Ulysses 50 A corpse rising saltwhite from the undertow, bobbing landward, a pace a pace a porpoise. 1961A. Sillitoe Key to Door xxvii. 426 Water foamed into salt-white patches below the stern.
1680J. Collins Salt & Fishery To Rdr., Mr. William Martin..who..gave me an account of the sad Condition of those *Saltworkers. 1861Neale Notes Dalmatia 72 A little white chapel for the salt-workers.
1921W. de la Mare Veil 78 And the ocean water stirs In *salt-worn casemate and porch.
c. Special combs.: † salt-ark, a salt-box; salt bag (see quot.); salt bath, a bath of a molten salt or salts, as used in annealing; salt-bearer (at the Eton montem: see quots.); salt block U.S. (see quot.); salt bottom U.S. (see quot.); salt bridge Chem., (a) a tube containing an electrolyte (freq. in the form of a gel) which provides electrical contact between two solutions; (b) a structure linking parts of a large molecule by means of a polar bond; spec. one formed between an acidic and a basic group; salt-burn = salt-sore; salt bush, any of the plants of the genus Atriplex (and of some allied genera) which grow extensively on the interior plains of Australia and in arid regions elsewhere; salt-cake, (a) salt in the form of a cake; (b) see quot. 1858; salt cedar, a tamarisk, Tamarix gallica, growing as a shrub or small tree in warm parts of the United States; † salt-corn, a grain of salt (in quot. fig.); salt dome, a dome-shaped geological structure formed around and over a salt plug, often the source of oil or other minerals; also, a salt plug; salt-dropping = bittern n.2; salt-duty = granage; saltgardens [= G. salzgärten], shallow ponds laid out upon a sea-coast for the collection and evaporation of sea-water for the manufacture of salt; salt glaze (see quot.); also transf., ceramic objects to which salt glaze has been applied; hence as v. trans.; salt-glazed a., prepared with salt glaze; salt-glazing, (a) the use of salt glaze; (b) = salt-glaze; salt-like a., spec. in Chem., ionic; applied esp. to those hydrides which contain the anion H-; salt-looking a., of sailor-like appearance; salt-master, a collector of salt-duty; salt mine, a mine yielding rock salt; also joc. (esp. in pl.) with allusion to the practice of sentencing offenders to labour in a salt mine; spec. one's work or place of employment; salt money, † (a) salary; (b) salt used as a medium of exchange; (c) = sense 10; † salt-office, the office concerned with the collection of salt-duty; so salt-officer; salt-pie dial. a salt-box (see E.D.D.); salt plug, an approximately cylindrical mass of salt, typically a mile in diameter and several miles deep, which has been forced upwards by subterranean pressure, distorting the overlying strata and forming a salt dome; salt-radical Chem., in the binary theory of salts, any body which forms a salt with a metal or its equivalent; salt-raker (see quot.); salt-rock, † (a) rock-salt; (b) rock impregnated with salt; † salt-rover, one who sails the seas; salt-shaker U.S. = salt-sprinkler; † salt-silver (see quots.); salt sore, a sore caused by exposure to salt water; salt-spreader, a vehicle that spreads salt on roads in order to melt snow and ice; hence salt-spreading vbl. n. and ppl. a.; salt-sprinkler, a closed vessel for salt having holes through which it is sprinkled; † salt stack, a mound of earth from which salt was manufactured; salt-stand, a salt-cellar; salt tablet, a tablet of salt that is swallowed, usu. to replace salt lost in perspiration; salt-tax = gabelle; salt-tree, a tree of the genus Halimodendron, esp. H. argenteum; salt-weed, (a) the Toad-rush, Juncus bufonius; (b) U.S. a plant of the genus Hedeoma; † salt-wich, a salt-pit; salt-wife [cf. G. salzfrau], a woman who sells salt. See also salt-box, salt-cat, salt-cellar, salt lake, etc.
1348Durham Acc. Rolls (Surtees) 43 In 1 *Saltark, 13d. 1481Ibid. 97, j Saltarke.
1847S. R. Maitland in Brit. Mag. XXXI. 367 note, He told me that when, as a freshman [at Cambridge], he was getting his gown from the maker, he made some remark on the long strips of sleeve by which such gowns are distinguished, and was told they were called *salt-bags.
1913Lockwood's Dict. Mech. Engin. (ed. 4), *Salt bath furnace, a type of hardening furnace in which the temperature is regulated by the employment of fused salts. 1925Jrnl. Iron & Steel Inst. CXI. 536 The purification of fused salt baths composed of equal parts of sodium and potassium chlorides by the additon of boric acid and charcoal is also dealt with. 1980Railway Gaz. Internat. Jan. 59/2 Molten salt bath nitriding and induction hardening caused bore distortion.
a1769in Brand's Pop. Antiq. (1813) I. 344 note, Two of the scholars called *Salt-bearers, dressed in white, with a handkerchief of Salt in their hands. 1864R. Chambers Bk. Days II. 665/2 The salt-bearers were accustomed to carry..a handkerchief filled with salt, of which they bestowed a small quantity on every individual who contributed his quota to the subsidy.
1875Knight Dict. Mech. 2023/1 *Salt-block, an apparatus for evaporating the water from a saline solution. The technical name for a salt-factory.
1859Bartlett Dict. Amer., *Salt-bottom, a plain or flat piece of land covered with saline efflorescence. These places abound in Western Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona.
1915Jrnl. Amer. Chem. Soc. XXXVII. 2781 Bjerrum's method of extrapolation..is to add, to the voltage obtained by using 3·5 M KCl as a *salt bridge, the difference between this voltage and that obtained by using 1·75 M KCl as the salt bridge. 1929H. T. S. Britton Hydrogen Ions viii. 109 These two solutions are connected through the ‘salt bridge’, a narrow inverted U-tube, containing saturated KCl solution. 1965Jrnl. Molecular Biol. XIII. 656 This arrangement would allow the α-amino group of one β-chain to form a salt-bridge with the α-carboxyl group of its symmetrically related partner, resulting in the formation of two salt bridges on either side of the dyod axis. 1978P. W. Atkins Physical Chem. xii. 347 Another way of eliminating the junction potential is to connect the two half-cells with a salt bridge formed by dissolving potassium chloride in a water-soluble jelly. 1978Nature 23 Nov. 362/1 Protein subunits in the two layers of the disk of tobacco mosaic virus have very similar conformations. Much of the bonding between subunits is polar, including salt-bridge systems.
1917D. H. Lawrence Look! We have come Through! 37 Nevertheless, once, the frogs, the globe-flowers of Bavaria, the glow-worms Gave me sweet lymph against the *salt-burns.
1863Westgarth in J. Davis Tracks of McKinlay 14 As cattle can live upon the *salt-bush, this country is thus suitable for pastoral pursuits. 1870T. H. Braim New Homes ii. 89 This inland salt-bush country suits the settler's purpose well. 1890‘R. Boldrewood’ Col. Reformer (1891) 100 Garrandilla consisted wholly of saltbush plains. 1901M. Franklin My Brilliant Career xxii. 185, I listened with interest to stories of weeks and weeks spent..crossing widths of saltbush country. 1909Coulter & Nelson New Man. Bot. Rocky Mts. (ed. 2) 165 Atriplex L. Saltbush. Orache. 1911C. E. W. Bean ‘Dreadnought’ of Darling xv. 144 The grass might die off and the salt bush wither up. 1936I. L. Idriess Cattle King ii. 10 He had never seen saltbush before. He felt strangely attracted by this little grey bush; its sombre colouring typical of the area. 1940E. C. Jaeger Desert Wild Flowers 53 It [sc. the hoary saltbush] is one of the most widely distributed of American salt-bushes. 1944Living off Land ii. 42 Lucerne leaves, nettles, saltbush and milk thistles can all be used as substitutes for spinach. 1973Stand. Encycl. S. Afr. IX. 480/1 Several species of Atriplex..are known as saltbush.
c1702C. Fiennes Journeys (1947) i. 49 The thinner part [of the salt] runns through on Moulds they set to catch it which they call *Salt Cakes. 1818Marsden tr. Trav. Marco Polo ii. xxxviii. 421 They obtain a saggio of gold for sixty, fifty, or even forty of the salt-cakes. 1858Simmonds Dict. Trade, Salt-cake, a name for sulphate of soda made at alkali works, for the use of crown-glass manufacturers and soap makers. 1883H. J. Powell, etc. Princ. Glass-making 146 The ‘salt-cake’..or sulphate of soda, is likewise pulverized and afterwards sifted. 1881Harper's Mag. Apr. 731/1 *Salt cedars and stunted live-oaks..were the only trees growing from the thin soil. 1973Tucson (Arizona) Daily Citizen 22 Aug. 58/3 We wound up tramping..through the mud and salt cedars.
1445tr. Claudian in Anglia XXVIII. 273 Thou strowist such *saltcornys [orig. aspersis salibus] amonge þi spechis as amphion is founde vnlike To the in talkyng.
1908Science 28 Feb. 348/1 The expansive force of the salt from the crystallizing source will be very circumscribed and the *salt domes local in character. 1928E. R. Lilley Geol. Petroleum & Nat. Gas xvi. 376 The salt dome..is known in areas where it does not appear to be associated with oil. 1945M. F. Glaessner Princ. Micropalaeont. ix. 232 Lower Tertiary, Cretaceous, and Upper Jurassic microfossils (foraminifera and ostracodes) have been described from the salt-dome area..between the northern shore of the Caspian sea and the southern foothills of the Ural Mountains. 1964W. C. Putnam Geol. vi. 134/1 Many of the Gulf Coast salt domes are crowned with an irregular covering of limestone, anhydrite, gypsum, and occasionally sulphur, termed the cap rock. 1976Billings (Montana) Gaz. 5 July 4-a/2 It not only will transmit needed crude oil to the Midwest, it also will make usable the vast salt domes of the Williston basin for strategic storage of crude.
1805Forsyth Beauties Scot. II. 278 A liquid, something of the appearance of oil,..which..the people here call *salt-droppings.
1710J. Chamberlayne St. Gt. Brit. ii. iii. vi. (ed. 23) 509 The Commissioners and other Officers for the *Salt-Duty.
1848F. Knapp's Chem. Technol. I. 257 These *salt-gardens are nothing more than a series of very shallow ponds, intended to spread the water over a very large surface.
1855J. Scoffern in Orr's Circ. Sci., Elem. Chem. 432 The Lambeth stone ware, and some other kinds are glazed by a thin..varnish of silicate of soda... This is known by the appellation of ‘*salt glaze’, from the method of imparting it, which is as follows:—Whilst the stoneware is yet glowing in the furnace, a door is opened, and common salt is thrown in. 1968J. Arnold Shell Bk. Country Crafts 236 The studio potters produce various kinds of terracotta..and saltglaze. 1977Ashmolean Mus. Rep. Visitors 1975–76 23 A selection of white salt-glaze from the Church bequest.
1862Catal. Internat. Exhib. II. x. 12 The patent *salt-glazed socketed drain pipes. 1884Health Exhib. Catal. 59/1 Patent Salt-Glazed Earthenware Latrine. 1967M. Chandler Ceramics in Mod. World ii. 52 Porous drainpipes are still often salt-glazed, a process that is unique among glazing processes.
1875Knight Dict. Mech. 2023/1 *Salt-glazing, a glaze for earthenware, prepared from common salt. 1885Cassell's Techn. Educ. III. 37/1 Salt⁓glazing is..almost invariably confined to down-draught kilns.
1928Chem. Abstr. XXII. 3343 (heading) *Salt-like hydrides. 1952D. T. Hurd Introd. Chem. Hydrides iii. 23 The salt-like hydrides are very susceptible to hydrolysis in aqueous solution. 1965Phillips & Williams Inorg. Chem. I. xvii. 619 The non-interstitial carbides are, in some senses, intermediate in character between the metallic interstitial carbides and the reactive salt-like carbides.
1848Dickens Dombey iv, He..had been a pilot, or a skipper, or a privateersman,..and was a very *salt-looking man indeed.
1656in Misc. Scott. Burgh Rec. Soc. (1881) 11 The Comissioners..had some treaty with the *salt-masters touching the farme of theyr salt. 1847Crabbe's Poet. Wks. Life 2 He rose to be collector of the salt-duties, or Salt-master.
1685E. Brown Trav. 70 Half an hours going from the City of Eperies in upper Hungary, there is a *Salt-Mine of great note. 1811Holland in Trans. Geol. Soc. I. 56 In countries where salt-mines occur, fragments of primitive rocks appear in great abundance over these beds. 1963Times 13 May 3/1 Rhodes is back in favour after a year or two in the saltmines for throwing. 1966L. Deighton Billion-Dollar Brain xvii. 186 We finished our milk. ‘Back to the salt mines,’ said Harvey. 1975B. Garfield Hopscotch xxvii. 281 I'd better get back to the salt mines. I've got a lot of unfinished jobs. 1977Listener 10 Nov. 616/2 Harding was summoned by Sir John Reith and..sent off to the salt-mines of Manchester.
1535Cromwell in Merriman Life & Lett. cxxvii. (1902) I. 436 There is due unto his grace the hole pencion and *salt moneye for the last yere. 1625Purchas Pilgrims ii. vii. v. §7. 1055 marg., Through all æthiopia, Salt runneth as a principal merchandize. Salt-money. a1769Huggett in Brand's Pop. Antiq. (1813) I. 345 note, The price of the dinner to each is 10s. 6d. and 2s. 6d. for Salt-money.
1708Brit. Apollo No. 24. 4/2 James Cardonnell Esq; is made a Commissioner of the *Salt-Office.
1748Brownrigg Art of Making Salt 56 An office for his majesty's *salt officers, and a dwelling house for the salt boilers.
1483Cath. Angl. 317/2 A *Salte pye, salinum.
1918,1944*Salt plug [see plug n. 2 l (ii)]. 1967M. T. Halbouty Salt Domes vi. 87/2 Oil and formation waters migrated from sediments surrounding the salt plug and were trapped in porous sections of the cap rock.
1842Graham Elem. Chem. 163 The acid and oxygen are thus always together in the exact proportion to form the *salt-radical. 1863Fownes' Chem. (ed. 9) 253 It has been found necessary to create two classes of salts: in the first division will stand those constituted after the type of common salt, which contain a metal and a salt-radical.
1837A. Mallory Let. 20 Apr. in J. J. Audubon Ornith. Biogr. (1839) V. 257 Several of the fishermen, and *salt-rakers,..frequent the keys to the windward of this place. 1858Simmonds Dict. Trade, Salt-raker, a collector of salt in natural salt⁓ponds, or enclosures from the sea.
1693Act 5 Will. & Mary c. 7 §24 Whereas *Salt-Rock or Rock-Salt taken out of pittes is in such great Lumps that it cannot be measured without breaking the same to powder. 1796Morse Amer. Geog. II. 242 This mine of salt-rock has been worked these 600 years past. 1834–6P. Barlow in Encycl. Metrop. (1845) VIII. 429/2 Salt rocks, in which the salt is combined more or less with earthy matter.
1620Middleton & Rowley World Tost 633 [Land-captain to Sea-captain] Proud *salt⁓rover, Thou hast the salutation of a thief.
1895*Salt shaker [see pepper shaker s.v. pepper n. 7]. 1931W. Cather Shadows on Rock ii. i. 50 His ragged jacket was as much too tight as the trousers were too loose, and this gave him the figure of a salt-shaker. 1977B. Roueché Fago (1978) i. iv. 72, I..picked up the kitchen salt shaker and rubbed it clean.
1363in Kennett Par. Antiq. (1695) 496 Quilibet virgatarius dabit Domino unum denarium pro *Salt-Sylver per annum..vel cariabunt salem Domini de foro ubi emptus fuerit ad lardarium Domini. [Ibid. Gloss., Salt-Sylver, one penny paid at the Feast of St. Martin, by the servile Tenants to their Lord, as a commutation for the service of carrying their Lord's Salt from Market to his Lardar.]
1908N. Duncan Every Man for Himself v. 140 [Armenian loq.] An' thee *salt-sores from thee feeshin' is on thee han's. 1979F. Forsyth Devil's Alternative 7 Those parts submerged in sea water soft and white between the salt-sores.
1951Sun (Baltimore) 21 Dec. b32/6 The Board of Estimates is expected to approve today the purchase of 25 latest-type *salt spreaders. 1962B.S.I. News Feb. 8/1 One London council whose salt-spreading was hindered because supplies had become ‘rock-hard’. 1962Times 27 Nov. 13/2 For the motorways, a fleet of snow ploughs and heavy salt-spreading vehicles is at constant readiness, day and night. The salt-spreaders can cover the whole of the M.1 at 40 to 50 m.p.h., within an hour.
1864Boutell Her. Hist. & Pop. xxi. (ed. 3) 369 *Salt-sprinklers.
16..Archbald in W. Macfarlane Geogr. Coll. (1908) III. 189 Then they carry a sufficient quantity of the *Saltstack & spread it over the whole Coach.
1869Blackmore Lorna D. I. xxi. 238, I know..their hospitality is more of the knife than the *salt-stand.
1944Living off Land v. 102 The cure is a pinch of salt, or one of the *salt tablets now provided for the purpose, on the back of the tongue before each drink. 1976A. Price War Game ii. iv. 230 A heavy leather buff⁓coat..trapped the sweat and delayed the dehydration... So even though the salt tablets..were necessary, the discomfort was endurable.
1792A. Young Trav. France I. 555 The gabelle, or *salt⁓tax. 1834McCulloch Dict. Comm. (ed. 2) 1004 It was not the nature of the salt tax, but the absurd extent to which it had been carried, that rendered it justly odious. 1883F. Day Indian Fish 11 (Fish. Exhib. Publ.) The fisherman's and fish-curer's occupations are injured by the incidence of a heavy salt-tax.
1824Loudon Encycl. Gard. (ed. 2) Index, *Salt-tree, robinia halodendron.
1836W. Irving Astoria III. 42 A plant called *saltweed, resembling pennyroyal. 1847Halliwell, Salt-weed, toad-rush. Suffolk. 1881Geikie in Macm. Mag. XLIV. 237/1 Here and there [in the Bad Lands of Wyoming] a bunch of salt-weed.
1610Holland Camden's Brit. (1637) 607 These are very famous *Salt⁓wiches,..where brine or salt water is drawne out of Pittes.
1818Scott Hrt. Midl. xl, Ye wad hae kend nae odds on her frae ony other *saut-wife.
▪ II. † salt, n.2 Obs.
Also 6 saute.
[a. F. saut (lit. ‘leap’):—L. saltus (u-stem), f. salīre to leap. Cf. assaut adv., and, for the spelling, salt a.2]
Sexual desire or excitement (usually, of a bitch).
1519W. Horman Vulg. 110 My dogge proferth to the saute or bytchewatch. Canis meus catulit. 1519Eng. Misc. (Surtees) 33 That no man lett no bitchis un [? read in] salte go aboght in the town. 1528Tindale Obed. Chr. Man D ij b, The weddinges of oure virgyns..ar moare like vnto the saute of a bitche then the marienge of a reasonable creature. 1648Herrick Hesp., Parting Verse 25 The expressions of that itch And salt, which frets thy Suters.
▪ III. salt, a.1|sɒlt, -ɔː-|
Forms: see salt n.1
[OE. sealt = OFris. salt, MLG., LG. solt, Du. zout, ON. salt-r:—OTeut. *salto-z:—pre-Teut. *sald-; cf. L. salsus, f. *sald- + -tos.
In certain collocations it is doubtful whether salt is to be regarded as an adj. or as the n. used attrib. Cf. the Ger. compounds salzfleisch salt flesh, salzfisch salt fish, etc.]
1. Impregnated with or containing salt; hence, having a taste like that of salt; saline.
a. Of water, brine-springs, etc. salt finger, one of a number of alternating columns of rising and descending water produced when a layer of water is overlain by a denser, more salty layer; so salt fingering, the occurrence of salt fingers; salt spray, used attrib. to denote a test in which an article is subjected to a spray of salt water, and the associated apparatus. See also salt spring, salt water.
In ME. poetry salt sea, salt flood (now occas. arch.), salt foam, salt stream are frequent phrases for the sea.
a900Cynewulf Christ 677 Sum mæᵹ fromlice ofer sealtne sæ sundwudu drifan. c1205Lay. 6116 He..fram þan londe hælde ofer þane saltne strem. 13..Sir Beues (A.) 3272 He was maroner wel gode, A stertte in to þe salte flode. c1385Chaucer L.G.W. 1462 So longe he seylith in the salte se Til in the yle of lenoun aryuede he. 1398Trevisa Barth. De P.R. xi. i. (1495) 383 The North see is but lytyll salte and the see that hyght Ponticum is as it were fressh. c1407Lydg. Reson & Sens. 1458 She roos of the foom most salt. c1470Gol. & Gaw. 302 The roy rial..socht to the cietie of Criste, our the salt flude. 1565Cooper Thesaurus, Salsilago..a salt licour; bryne. 1590Shakes. Mids. N. iii. ii. 393 His [sc. Neptune's] salt greene streames. 1625N. Carpenter Geog. Del. ii. v. 76 We see water being wrung through ashes, to grow salt. 1799Kirwan Geol. Ess. 356 It appears that, the Baltic is much less salt than the ocean, and that it is salter under a westerly than under an easterly wind. 1856Stanley Sinai & Pal. vii. 286 note, It is sometimes supposed that the Dead Sea is the saltest water in the world. 1877Bryant Odyss. v. 553 He loosed The veil..And to the salt flood cast it. 1883G. C. Davies Norfolk Broads xxxiv. 236 What are known as the salt-tides are chiefly the bane of the angler. 1885R. Buchanan Annan Water iii, Day and night the salt spray of the ocean was blown upon it. 1967Deep-Sea Res. XIV. 599 The opposite situation of a stable temperature gradient made unstable with a little salt leads to the formation of ‘salt fingers’. 1977Sci. Amer. Oct. 147/1 The warm salty water of the Mediterranean sets up the conditions for salt fingering as it flows through the Straits of Gibraltar and over the fresher, cooler waters of the Atlantic. 1978J. A. Knauss Introd. Physical Oceanogr. ix. 187 It would appear that..at least some of the microstructure in the ocean is caused by salt fingers.
in phrases used attrib.1599? Greene Alphonsus v. Wks. (Grosart) XIII. 405 If that the salt-brine teares,..Can mollifie the hardnes of your heart. 1605Shakes. Macb. iv. i. 24 The rauin'd salt Sea sharke. 1798Wordsw. Peter Bell i. 232 Bespattered with the salt-sea foam. a1837R. Nicoll Poems (1842) 20 The Sabbath's wander in the woods, An' by the saut-sea faem. 1918Proc. Amer. Soc. Testing Materials XVIII. 237 (heading) Method of making the salt-spray corrosion test. 1945Electroplated Coatings of Nickel & Chromium on Steel & Brass (B.S.I.) 18 Salt spray cabinet. 1962B.S.I. News Feb. 18/2 A frequently-used test for determining resistance to corrosion is the salt spray test. Ibid. 606 Because of salt fingering, salt will escape across the bottom of this layer faster than heat. 1970Materials & Technol. III. ix. 704 Exposure to a continuous mist of salt water, the so-called salt-spray test,..does not truly simulate atmospheric exposure.
b. Applied to tears; † also, to humours, etc.
See also salt-rheum.
c1200Ormin 13849 Þurrh beȝȝske & salte tæress. c1386Chaucer Clerk's T. 1028 With hire salte teeres She bathed bothe hire visage and hire heeres. a1400–1500Alexander 154 Sekand þar souerayn with many salt terys. 1483Caxton Gold. Leg. 196 b/1, In requyryng our lord with salte teris that..he wolde delyuer them of this pestylence. 1544T. Phaer Regim. Lyfe (1560) B iv, An excessive rednesse..commynge of brente humours or of salte fleume. 1589Nashe Martins Months Minde Wks. (Grosart) I. 193 His Stomacke, full of grosse and salt humors. 1591Spenser Tears of Muses 112 Her Sisters..their faire faces with salt humour steep. 1607Shakes. Timon iv. iii. 443 The Seas a Theefe, whose liquid Surge, resolues The Moone into Salt teares. 1717Ramsay Elegy on Lucky Wood xi, Could our saut tears like Clyde down rin. 1840Longfellow Wreck of Hesperus xxi, The salt tears in her eyes. 1870‘H. Smart’ Race for Wife ii, She wept salt tears in the solitude of her own chamber.
c. Of tracts of land, marshes: Flooded by the sea. (See also salt-marsh.) Of rocks, ground: Having salt mixed with the earth; (in biblical use) barren. salt flat, a flat expanse of land covered with a layer of salt; salt meadow (chiefly N. Amer.), a meadow liable to be flooded by salt water.
1279Feod. Prior. Dunelm. (Surtees) 110 note, Cum toto prato quod vocatur Saltmedus. 1535Coverdale Jer. xvii. 5 In a salt and vnoccupied londe. 1611Bible Job xxxix. 6 Whose house I haue made the wildernesse, and the barren lande [marg. Hebr. salt places] his dwellings. 1656New Haven (Connecticut) Town Rec. (1917) I. 288 It was don..by the cattell hurrying downe in to ye salt meddows. 1716B. Church Hist. Philip's War (1865) I. 157 They March'd..until they came unto the Salt Meadow. 1789J. Morse Amer. Geogr. 287 There are large bodies of salt meadow along the Delaware. 1813Sir H. Davy Agric. Chem. (1814) 338 Virgil reprobates a salt soil. 1815Elphinstone Acc. Caubul Introd. 80 The range of salt hills. 1838Haliburton Clockm. Ser. ii. xix, Sea-mud, salt-sand,..and river-sludge. 1873J. L. Crawford in D. Eagan 6th Ann. Rep. Commissioner of Lands, Florida (1874) 97 Hundreds of salt-works were erected upon the ‘salt-flats’ along the sea-shore within the limits of Wakulla. 1881Harper's Mag. Jan. 254/2 The sluggish river winds through tracts of salt-meadow. 1886Encycl. Brit. XXI. 231/2 The great salt range of the Punjab. 1931Amer. Speech VII. 5 Sometimes the hunter found that he could make his best ‘killings’ at the ‘salt licks’ or ‘salt flats’ frequented by the buffalos. 1952E. F. Davies Illyrian Venture i. 20 Why was the plain white? Was it snow? No, it looked more like salt flats. 1966T. H. Raddall Hangman's Beach iii. xix. 286 A fringe of farms and salt meadows along the shore. 1972Guinness Bk. Records (ed. 19) 128/2 The highest speed attained by any wheeled land vehicle is 631·368 m.p.h...on the Bonneville Salt Flats, Utah, on 23 Oct. 1970... The highest speed attained by a wheel-driven car is 429· 311 m.p.h...on the salt flats at Lake Eyre, South Australia, on 17 July 1964.
d. Of other things, chiefly with regard to taste.
1398Trevisa Barth. De P.R. xvi. lxix. (1495) 575 Nitrum is bytter soure and somdeale salt in sauour. 1477Norton Ord. Alch. v. in Ashm. (1652) 74 Five of these Nyne [Sapors] be ingendred by Heat, Unctuous, Sharpe, Salt, Bitter.., Doulcet. 1484Caxton Fables of æsop v. x, I dayne not to ete of this mete..for it is to salte. 1600J. Pory tr. Leo's Africa viii. 297 They use a kinde of newe and extreme salt cheeses. 1639T. de la Grey Compl. Horseman 348 The leanest and saltest martlemas-beefe. 1849Hawthorne Twice-told T., Foot-pr. on Sea-shore 2 That far-resounding roar is Ocean's voice of welcome. His salt breath brings a blessing along with it. 1873Black Pr. Thule vi. 92 They drove on through the keen salt air.
2. Treated with salt as a preservative; cured, preserved, or seasoned with salt; salted. salt rising: see rising vbl. n. 15; salt side (U.S.), salt pork (cf. side n.1 3).
909in Birch Cart. Sax. II. 290, & tu hrieðeru oþer sealt oþer fersc. c1000in Techmer's Zeitschr. (1885) II. 125 Ðonne þu for hwylcere neode sealtflæsc wille. a1300Cursor M. 4688 Ma þan a thusand selers Fild he wit wins..And warnistore o salt fless. c1390in Forme of Cury (1780) 177 Great Salt Eels. c1460J. Russell Bk. Nurture 554 Of alle maner salt fische, looke ye pare awey the felle. 1590in Black Bk. Taymouth (Bann. Cl.) 306 Of..martis fresch and salt..iiixx xiii martis iii quarteris ii m. 1617Moryson Itin. i. 259 We..omitted to provide any dried or salt meates at Candia. 1745P. Thomas Jrnl. Anson's Voy. 64 Two horses, which being..probably better feeding than their salt Beef and Pork, they killed and eat them. 1816T. L. Peacock Headlong Hall ii, Packages of salt salmon. 1821John Bull 19 Mar. 111/3 Salt butter sold as high as twenty shillings a stone. 1861M. Pattison Ess. (1889) I. 46 Many a cargo of salt cod for Lent. 1892O. Wister Jrnl. 25 Nov. in Out West (1958) 143 We fried some bread..and I cooked some salt side. 1961Amer. Speech XXXVI. 266 The term salt side is probably a similar blend of Northern salt pork and Midland side meat, terms for bacon.
in phr. used attrib. or Comb.1598Shakes. Merry W. ii. ii. 290 Mechanicall-salt-butter rogue. 1611Cotgr. s.v. Boeuf, The salt beefe-eater needs no candle to find his liquor withall. 1710P. Lamb Roy. Cookery 71 A Salt-Fish Pie. 1747H. Glasstone Art of Cookery ix. 114 A Salt-Fish Pye. Get a Side of Salt-Fish, lay it in Water all Night [etc.]. 1966M. Woodhouse Tree Frog x. 76 We fought our way through thick salt-beef sandwiches.
b. Naut. (jocular). salt eel: a rope's end; compared to the tail of an eel. salt horse: salted beef; also transf., a naval officer with general duties. salt junk: see junk n.2 3.
1622Mabbe tr. Aleman's Guzman d'Alf. ii. 342 A good Ropes end, (which your Sea-faring men call a *salt Eele). 1663Pepys Diary 24 Apr. (1876) II. 188 Up betimes, and with my salt eele went down in the parler and there got my boy and did beat him. 1695Congreve Love for L. iii. vii, An he comes near me mayhap I may giv'n a salt eel for's supper. 1761Colman Jealous Wife v. i, If you wou'd let me alone, I wou'd give him a Salt Eel, I warrant you. 1867Smyth Sailor's Word-bk., Salt-eel, a rope's end cut from the piece for starting the homo delinquens.
1836Marryat Mr. Midshipman Easy III. i. 11 Why you stay in Midshipman berth—eat hard biscuit, salt pig, *salt horse? 1840F. D. Bennett Whaling Voy. I. 189 note, A return..to the ‘salt horse’, which no one is more ready to abuse than an old sailor. 1872Routledge's Ev. Boy's Ann. 42/1 The..hard fare of ‘weevily’ biscuit and ‘salt-horse’. 1914F. T. Jane Navy as Fighting Machine viii. 69 A non-specialist officer (known colloquially as ‘salt horse’) serves as a watch-keeper. 1917‘Taffrail’ Sub. v. 115 Next came Lieutenant Hinckson, the senior ‘salt horse’, two and a half striped Lieutenant. 1946J. Irving Royal Navalese 149 Salt horse, A, an officer who has not specialised in gunnery, torpedo, etc. and does not intend to. 1957D. Macintyre Jutland ii. 33 Here was a simple ‘salt-horse’, indeed, and such were not often selected, in time of peace, for the higher ranks of the Service. 1960J. Bisset Commodore 17 Officers in big ships called destroyer-officers ‘salt horses’—meaning nonspecialists, a term of disdain.
1792*Salt junk [see junk n.2 3]. 1837Marryat Snarleyyow l. xii. 152 So while they cut their raw salt junks, With dainties you'll be crammed. 1853Kane Grinnell Exp. xxxiv. (1856) 309 The same sergeant-major, Canot, is now cooking salt junk in Baffin's Bay.
3.
†a. Of fishes: Living in the sea: opposed to freshwater.
b. Of plants: Growing in the sea or on salt marshes. salt grass (U.S.), one of a number of grasses growing in salt meadows or dry plains, esp. Distichlis spicata and several species of Spartina; salt hay (U.S.) hay made from salt grass.
1297R. Glouc. (Rolls) 14 Engelonde is vol inoȝ..Of foweles & of bestes..Of salt fichz & eke verss. 1598Shakes. Merry W. i. i. 22 The Luse is the fresh-fish, the salt-fish, is an old Coate. 1648in Mass. Hist. Soc. Coll. (1852) 4th Ser. I. 204 Salt hay and fresh there thousands are of acres I do deeme. 1697Dryden Virg. Georg. iii. 606 From the marshy Land Salt Herbage for the fodd'ring Rack provide. 1704Early Rec. Providence, Rhode Island (1894) V. 224 The which sd Cove is a place of Salt Grass called Thatch. 1732J. Hempstead Diary 23 Sept. (1901) 252, I went to Mamacock & fetcht a L[oa]d of Salt hay alias Rushes. 1763Mills Pract. Husb. III. 413 This..answers for any sort of hay, except salt-hay and red clover. a1816B. Hawkins Sk. Creek Country (1848) 43 Such is the attachment of horses to this moss, or as the traders call it, salt grass. 1843Knickerbocker XXII. 34 Range your eye along the summits of the salt hay-stacks. 1857Faber Sir Lancelot ii. 478 The drowsy plains, Where brittle salt-herbs struggle with wild thyme. 1849M. Arnold Forsaken Merman 38 Where the salt weed sways in the stream. 1859Bartlett Dict. Amer., Salt grass and Salt hay, the grass and hay growing in salt marshes. 186.Whitman Elem. Drifts Poems (1868) 269 Leaves of salt-lettuce, left by the tide. 1910J. Hart Vigilante Girl xxv. 350 The little stream..ran from the spring through bunches of salt grass. 1952L. & J. Bush-Brown America's Garden Bk. (ed. 2) xii. 446 Salt hay is one of the most satisfactory materials mentioned [for winter mulching]. 1972R. G. Kazmann Mod. Hydrol. (ed. 2) v. 175 Salt grass will survive when the water table is as much as 12 ft. below the land surface.
†4. fig. Of experience, etc.: Bitter; vexatious.
c1500Priests of Peblis 1206 And he to me wit thow maid ony falt, To the that wil be ful sowre and salt. 1513Douglas æneis xiii. Prol. 98 Wald thou..mak amendis, I sal remyt this falt; Bot, other wais, that sete sal be full salt. 1592Greene Quip Upst. Courtier Wks. (Grosart) XI. 241 The yoong vpstart that needes it, feels it salt in his stomack a month after.
5. Of speech, wit, etc.: Pungent, stinging. Now rare.
a1600Hooker Eccl. Pol. vi. (1648) 92 Of which opinion Tertullian making (as his usuall manner was) a salt Apologie. 1605Camden Rem. (1637) 248 He salted, powdred, and made them stir with his salt and sharpe quipping speeches. 1609R. Armin Ital. Taylor ad fin., Thy wit, not worthie's any Schoole, T'is salt, and too precise. 1656Trapp Comm. Eph. v. 4 Salt jests,..to the just grief or offence of another. 1890Spectator 11 Jan., The far-reaching issues of human emotion, which by a sentence he bites into our memory, give exceptional if a rather salt truthfulness to his creations.
transf.1606Shakes. Tr. & Cr. i. iii. 371 The pride and salt scorne of his eyes.
6. slang. and dial. Of expense, cost: Excessive in amount; costly, dear.
1710Ruddiman Gloss. to Douglas s.v. Salt, I shall make it salt to you i.e. I shall make you pay dear for it. 1808Jamieson, Salt... 2. Costly, expensive; applied to any article of sale. 1860Hotten Slang Dict. s.v. ‘Its rather too salt’, said of an extravagant hotel bill. 1887Fun 21 Sept. 126 A magistrate who was lately fined 20s. for striking a man in the street, seemed somewhat astonished on hearing the decision, and remarked, ‘It's rather salt’.
7. slang. Of high rank or great wealth. (Cf. salt n.1 3 a.)
1868Daily Tel. 27 May, The salt ones of the earth in their private boxes.
8. Comb., as salt-tasting, salt-waved adjs.
1593Shakes. Lucr. 1231 Those fair suns..Who in a salt⁓waved ocean quench their light. 1904‘Anthony Hope’ Double Harness ii. 17 The exhilaration of the salt-tasting air.
▪ IV. † salt, a.2 Obs.
Also 6 saut(e, sawt(e, 7 sault.
[Aphetic f. assaut adv. in phr. to go or be assaut. Cf. salt n.2]
Of bitches: In heat.
1541Court Roll Pershore Portsmouth Manor, Worc. 22 July (Westm. Chapter Munim.), Nullus permittet licescas catulantes vocatas ‘Sawtebytches’ adire ad largum. 1575Turberv. Venerie lxxiii. 200 They [sc. Otters] goe sault at suche times as firrets goe sault. 1577B. Googe Heresbach's Husb. iii. (1586) 154 b, The Dogge is thought better than the Bitche, because of the trouble shee bringeth when shee is sawte. 1616Surfl. & Markh. Country Farme 701 If you take a bitch Fox when she is salt. 1697Dryden Virg. Georg. ii. 518 Salt Goats, and hungry Cows. 1737Ozell Rabelais II. 250 note8, Smelling.., as Dogs do to a salt Bitch.
b. transf. of persons: Lecherous, salacious; hence (of desire), inordinate.
1598Bp. Hall Sat. iv. 1, Hee lies wallowing..on his Brothel-bed, Till his salt bowels boyle with poysonous fire. 1599B. Jonson Ev. Man out of Hum. iv. iii. (1616) 142 Let mee perish, but thou art a salt one! 1603Shakes. Meas. for M. v. i. 406 Whose salt imagination yet hath wrong'd Your well defended honor. 1604― Oth. ii. i. 244 His salt, and most hidden loose Affection. 1605B. Jonson Volpone ii. i. (1616) 464 It is no salt desire Of seeing countries..hath brought me out. a1683Oldham Wks. (1686) 3 Bawds shall turn Nuns, Salt D―s grow chast.
Comb.a1616Beaum. & Fl. Bonduca iii. v. (1647) 59/2 Ye villains, Ambitious salt-itcht slaves:..The mountain Rams topt your hot mothers.
▪ V. salt, v.1|sɒlt, -ɔː-|
Forms: α. 1 sealtan, (Mercian pa. pple. salten), 4–6 salte, 6 (8–9) Sc. saut, 7 sault, 4– salt; 4 pa. tense selt, salt. β. 1 seltan, syltan, (pa. pple. ᵹeselt, ᵹesylt); 4 pa. tense silt; pa. pple. 3 iselt, 4 isult(e, selt.
[(1) OE. sealtan, ? redupl. str. vb., pa. pple. *sealten, salten, = mod.Fris. (pa. pple.) sâlten, MLG. solten wk., Du. zouten wk., OHG. salzan, pa. tense sialz (MHG., G. salzen, weak), ON. salta weak (Sw. salta, Da. salte), Goth. saltan, pa. pple. (un-)saltans; f. OTeut. *salto-:—preTeut. *saldo- salt n.1 Cf. the synonymous L. sallĕre (:—*sald-). (2) OE. *sieltan (Northumb. sælta), seltan, syltan (pa. pple. ᵹeselt, ᵹesylt):—prehistoric *saltjan, f. OTeut. *salto- salt n.1 The form salte as it appears in the 13–14th c. prob. partly represents OE. sealtan, and partly is a new formation on salt n.1
OE. syltan may be either the late WS. form of *sieltan or may represent an umlaut-formation on the stem sult-, from which are derived OE. unsylt unsalted, OS. sultia, MLG. sülte, OHG. sulzia (MHG., G. sulze, sülze), Du. zult salt water, salted flesh, etc.]
1. trans. To treat with salt as a preservative; to cure or preserve with salt, either in solid form or in the form of brine. Also with down, † up.
αa1300Cursor M. 13230 In a wall his heued sco hid, Sco has it salted in a wall. 1375Barbour Bruce xviii. 168 Thai strak his hed of, and syne it Thai haf gert saltit in-till a kyt. 1398Trevisa Barth. De P.R. xix. lxxiii. (1495) 904 Butter is somdeele salted that it may the better be kepte. c1460Fortescue Abs. & Lim. Mon. x. (1885) 132 In Ffraunce the peple salten but lytill mete, except thair bacon. 1530Palsgr. 697/2, I never salte my befe but in the potte. 1562Act 5 Eliz. c. 5 §6 Any Herring, not being sufficiently salted, packed and casked. 1634W. Wood New Eng. Prosp. (1865) 38 They [sc. fish] are left on the dry ground, sometimes two or three thousand at a set, which are salted up against winter. 1661Boyle Style of Script. (1675) 183 As swine after their death are salted. 1764E. Moxon Eng. Housew. (ed. 9) 75 Then salt it [sc. beef] with common salt and two ounces of saltpetre. 1836Penny Cycl. V. 139/1 The French..were obliged to live chiefly on the flesh of their horses, which was salted down. 1851F. Knapp's Chem. Technol. III. 55 The one [method] consists in salting the butter, which preserves it for immediate use by hindering the decomposition of the casein. 1869H. F. Tozer Highl. Turkey I. 308 The custom of salting and keeping the heads of enemies killed in battle. 1875Chamb. Jrnl. 46 [She] had fed herself..through the winter upon snails she had salted down in a barrel.
absol.c1400Mandeville (1839) xiii. 149 Beside that Cytee, is a Hille of Salt; and of that Salt, every man takethe what he will, for to salte with.
βa1000Ags. Gloss. in Wr.-Wülcker 212/40 Condit,..selt. c1000ælfric Gram. xxx. (Z.) 192 Ic..sylte, condio. c1000Sax. Leechd. II. 234 Selte mon hiora mettas. 1297R. Glouc. (Rolls) 9164, & suþþe þe bones hii bere Wel iselt [v.r. isulte] & isode to þe abbeye of redinge. 1300–1400R. Gloucester's Chron. (Rolls) App. xx. 35 Hit was wel isult & in mani leþer ido. 1398Trevisa Barth. De P.R. xvii. xxxii. (1495) 623 The floures of Capparis ben selt and so kepte to gode vse.
b. slang. to salt down, salt away: to put by, store away (money, stock).
1849N. P. Willis Rural Lett. viii. 355 ‘Calm as the shadow of a rock across the foam of a cataract’, would be a neat thing to ‘salt down’ for Calhoun or Van Buren. 1873Leland Egypt. Sketch-Bk. 57 Give an Egyptian the same [sc. a sixpence], and instead of thanking or drinking, he will salt it down, and promptly beg for more. 1885Daily News 3 Nov. 5/2 He was ‘salting down’ money for the joint benefit of Ward and himself. 1897Barrère & Leland Slang Dict. s.v., To salt down stock, to buy stock and keep it for a considerable period. 1902R. W. Chambers Maids of Paradise vii. 126 No one to hinder you from salting away as many millions as you can carry off! 1931Kansas City (Missouri) Star 19 Sept. 12/5 It is a well known fact that all gamblers salt away their ill-gotten gains and die inordinately rich. 1952New Statesman 17 May 578/2 Many palms itched for the millions that the Nationalists had salted away. 1959Times 22 Apr. 8/4 Undisclosed profits were ‘salted away’ in banks in Eire and Rhodesia. 1966Economist 9 Apr. 172/3 Members of previous governments, some of them now restricted to their homes, have salted away enormous sums of hard currency in foreign banks during their period of office. 1974Socialist Worker 26 Oct. 3/1 The press, the experts and the pontificators see nothing wrong or hypocritical in the fact that the Banks can salt away these millions and make still more in this time of crisis.
†c. Students' slang. To admit (a freshman in a university) with certain burlesque ceremonies, one of which was making him drink salt-and-water or putting salt in his mouth. Obs.
1570, etc. [see salting vbl. n. 2]. 1611Chapman May Day ii. i. 32, I warrant you Sir, I haue not beene matriculated at the Vniuersity, to be meretriculated by him: salted there to be colted here. c1618Moryson Itin. iv. (1903) 317 At Witteburg they still retayne the old custome of Salting freshmen, or admitting them with ridiculous Ceremonyes,..and the Ceremony is by them called the deposition of hornes.
d. trans. To render (an animal) immune by inoculation; intr. of an animal: to become immune by suffering a disease. Cf. salted ppl. a. 4.
1898Cape of Good Hope Agric. Jrnl. 9 Jan. 6 The expression to salt a beast means to render the animal immune to the disease, to immunize him. 1906Rep. Brit. Assoc. Adv. Sci. 1905 545 Dr. Edington..reports that..by inoculating mules with Heart-water blood he has been able to salt them against Horse-sickness. 1912S. Afr. Agric. Jrnl. July 54 All farmers agree that cattle which recover [from Lamziekte] do not salt from the disease, in other words, there is no immunity.
2. trans.
a. In biblical use: To sprinkle salt upon (a sacrifice); to rub (a new-born child) with salt.
b. To rub salt into (a wound).
c. To sprinkle (snow) with salt in order to melt it; to sprinkle (a roadway) with salt in order to melt snow or ice.
a1300Leg. Rood (1871) 58 (Ashm. MS.) And of is flesc þat was vorbarnd þe wounden hi selte also [Vernon MS. salt, Harl. MS. silte]. 1382Wyclif Ezek. xvi. 4 And in water thou art not wasshen in to helth, neither bi salt saltid, neither wlappid in clothis. 1643Milton Divorce Introd. A 2 b, Till Time the Midwife..have washt and salted the Infant. a1682Sir T. Browne (J.), If the offering was of flesh, it was salted thrice. 1890Daily News 31 Dec. 3/1 Many of the vestries..won't clear the snow away themselves, and they won't let us salt the roads. 1977Oxford Jrnl. 2 Dec. 12/4 Roads will only be salted when it is absolutely certain a cold snap is on the way.
3. To season with salt.
αc975Rushw. Gosp. Matt. v. 13 Ᵹif þæt salt awerdað in þæm þe hit bið salten? c1000in Techmer's Zeitschrift (1885) II. 125 Do mid þin þrim fingrum, swillce þu sealte. 1382Wyclif Matt. v. 13 That ȝif the salt shal vanyshe awey, wherynne shal it be saltid? c1420Liber Cocorum (1865) 19 Salt hit, serve hit, as I þe say. Ibid. 31 Salt and messe forthe. c1430Two Cookery-bks. 32 Þen kytte þin Brewes & skalde hem with þe same broþe; Salt it wyl. Ibid. 41 Salt it þan, & þanne serue forth. 1747H. Glasstone Art of Cookery i. 3 Never salt your roast Meat before you lay it to the Fire, for that draws out all the Gravy. 1882Mme. Bouchard How to live on Nothing 17 All roasts should be peppered as well as salted, very little flour dredged over, and they should be served with a thick gravy. 1931E. Weir When Madame Cooks v. 55 After cleaning the fish..Salt and pepper the inside of each half and then grill them like a steak. 1965New Statesman 5 Nov. 692/3 He..took up his knife and fork. He carefully salted his egg.
βc950Lindisf. Gosp. Matt. v. 13 Ᵹif salt forworðes, in ðon ᵹesælted bið? [Ags. & Hatton ᵹesylt.] c1000Ags. Gosp. Mark ix. 50 Ᵹif þæt sealt unsealt biþ, on þam þe ᵹe hit syltað? [c1160Hatton selteð, v.r. sealtað.]
4. To render salt or salty. Also fig., to embitter.
1786Burns Dream xv, But ere the course o'life be thro', It may be bitter sautet. 1826J. Jekyll Corr. (1894) 164 Clever plan..to supply the new palace with fish, by salting the Serpentine river to breed tame turbot. 1906Westm. Gaz. 11 Dec. 2/2 A sea which salts all the rivers that flow into it.
5. fig. To season; to render poignant or piquant.
[c1000ælfric Hom. (Th.) II. 536 Lareowum ᵹedafenað þæt hi mid wisdomes sealte geleaffulra manna mod sylton.] 1576Fleming Panopl. Epist. A ij, Coriolanus..whose..continuall course of life being leauened and salted with the best things that nature could deuise. 1758Misc. in Ann. Reg. 381/1 Hardly any thing..was received there with applause, that was not salted with some obscene raillery. 1882Spurgeon Treas. Dav. cxix. 116 It is not wrong to make resolutions, but it will be useless..unless we salt them well with believing cries to God. 1887Saintsbury Hist. Elizab. Lit. vi. 230 Lodge began to write pamphlets vigorously..salted with charming poems. 1889Skrine Mem. Thring 217 There was piety salted with practical good sense. 1895Meredith Amazing Marr. I. ii. 22 He salted his language in a manner I cannot repeat; no epithet ever stood by itself.
b. U.S. colloq. To reprimand or dress down.
1904Springfield (Mass.) Weekly Republ. 9 Sept. 6 Senator Depew salts down William Allen White, who has stated that the senator tried to bully the president. 1913J. London Valley of Moon viii. 61 You're too fresh to keep... You need saltin' down.
6.
†a. To make (soil) barren by impregnating it with salt. Obs.
a1586Sidney Ps. cvii. xii, How many where doth he convert Well watred grounds to thirsty sand? And saltes the soile for with hart The dwellers beare that till the land! a1682Sir T. Browne Tracts x. (1683) 166 Salting and making barren the whole Soil.
b. To treat (land) with salt; to strew salt in (hay) to prevent mould. Also ‘To fill with salt between the timbers and planks, as a ship, for the preservation of the timber’ (Webster 1828–32).
1824Trans. Highl. Soc. VI. 173 Of these, 40 falls were..salted on the surface. 1825Loudon Encycl. Agric. §5233 Hay that had been flooded, was preferred by cattle to the best hay that had not been salted.
c. Orig. in Soap-making, to separate out (the soap) by adding salt to the lye after saponification. More generally in Chem., to reduce the solubility of, or precipitate (an organic substance) by adding an electrolyte to the solution; similarly to salt in, to increase the solubility of (an organic compound) by adding an electrolyte to the solvent.
1857Miller Elem. Chem., Org. (1862) III. 331 The coagulated soap is then to be re-dissolved in water, and salted out once or twice more. 1887Encycl. Brit. XXII. 203/1 In curd soaps..the uncombined alkali and glycerin are separated by ‘salting out’. 1928[see cortin]. 1933Chem. Rev. XIII. 91 There are numbers of cases in which the addition of certain salts increases the solubility of particular non-electrolytes causing them to be ‘salted in’. 1939Thorpe's Dict. Appl. Chem. (ed. 4) III. 286/2 The power of these electrolytes in ‘salting out’ organic compounds from their solutions. 1966Mahler & Cordes Biol. Chem. ii. 58 From the data in this figure, it is clear that at low ionic strengths the protein is salted in and at high ionic strengths the protein is salted out.
d. To provide (livestock) with salt. N. Amer.
1783‘J. H. St. John de Crèvecœur’ Sk. 18th-Cent. Amer. (1925) 111 We..salt our cattle regularly once a week... From the horses to the sheep everyone must have a handful given them. 1819E. Dana Geogr. Sk. Western Country 234 It is rare in this country that cattle are either fed, salted, or sheltered. 1852[see lick-log s.v. lick v. 8]. 1878Scribner's Mag. XVII. 51/2 They [sc. sheep] make many lively expeditions for the farm-boy—driving them out of mischief,..or salting them on the breezy hills. 1931Amer. Speech VI. 359 The absence of a salt sage diet on the summer range necessitates ‘salting mutton’... Every second or third day one or two fifty-pound sacks of salt for every fifteen hundred sheep will be emptied into ‘salt troughs’ on the ‘bed grounds’. 1968R. M. Patterson Finlay's River 240 The packer..decided to leave those two [horses] here on the meadows to fill up and recuperate. He would salt them here.
7. a. Photogr. To impregnate (paper, etc.) with a solution of a salt or a mixture of salts.
1879Cassell's Techn. Educ. III. 230 Excellent prints may, however, be produced upon paper which has been simply salted. 1878Abney Photogr. (1881) 145 When a paper is weakly salted, say, having half the amount of chloride given in the formula for albumenising paper.
b. To treat with chemical salts.
1904Brit. Med. Jrnl. 10 Sept. 558 Only from old cultures or from younger cultures which have been salted with ammonium sulphate can any poisons be obtained by filtration through porcelain.
8. Comm. slang. (See quots.) Cf. F. saler.
1882Ogilvie s.v., To salt an invoice, account, &c., to put on the extreme value on each article, in some cases in order to be able to make what seems a liberal discount at payment. 1897Barrère & Leland Slang Dict. s.v., Making fictitious entries in the books to simulate that the receipts are greater than they really are, when about to sell a business connection, is called salting the books. 1977New Yorker 29 Aug. 54/3 That made it easy for me to salt their accounts, and that's what I did. I began putting checks from company accounts into their personal accounts, and from there into oblivion via dummy companies.
9. Mining slang. To make (a mine) appear to be a paying one by fraudulently introducing rich ore, etc., into it, sprinkling gold dust in it, etc. Also transf. and fig.
1852in Pioneer (San Francisco) (1855) Mar. 146 The quicksilver which was procured at the Ranch, for the testing of the quartz, the victims declared was ‘salted’; and they accused the Rancheros of conniving at the fraud. 1863W. H. Goode Outposts of Zion iii. 415 The grounds have been ‘salted’—gold dust scattered to deceive. 1864Hotten Slang Dict. s.v., At the gold diggings of Australia, miners sometimes salt an unproductive hole by sprinkling a few grains of gold dust over it. 1880Harper's Mag. Dec. 88/1 The deacon had stuck in a bit of Scriptur so's to salt it like. 1884World 20 Aug. 6/1 The mine had possibly been ‘salted’, for no gold was forthcoming. 1892Muddock Grip of Law 285 He purchased some valuable specimens of gold quartz, with which he salted the estate. 1901Westm. Gaz. 29 June 9/3 The supposed great oilfields in Florida have been fraudulently ‘salted’ with refined petroleum. 1924G. B. Stern Tents of Israel vii. 114 The Nong-Khan mine had been cleverly ‘salted’... Only spinel sapphires, of practically no value, were to be found in it. 1951Times 13 Dec. 4/6 (heading) Gold samples ‘salted’. 1966W. S. Ramson Austral. Eng. vii. 148 One interesting and now probably obsolete expression is to salt a claim, meaning ‘to sprinkle salt over the dirt’, the salt having the appearance of gold-dust and giving the impression that the miner concerned has ‘struck it rich’. 1968A. S. Romer Procession of Life xviii. 296 The gravel pit it would seem, was ‘salted’ by someone (? Dawson) with specimens to be later excavated as seeming authentic fossils. 1977J. B. Hilton Dead-Nettle ii. 20, I shall want to see some evidence that there really is a seam. No salting it, no faking..your first job is to collect your showing.
10. intr. ‘To deposit salt from a saline substance; as, the brine begins to salt’ (Webster 1828–32).
▪ VI. salt, v.2
[f. salt a.2]
In pa. pple. = salt a.2
1582Stanyhurst æneis iv. (Arb.) 101 Thee winter season too wast in leacherye wanton, Retchles of her kingdom, with rutting bitcherye sauted [orig. turpique cupidine captos].
▪ VII. salt, saltable
var. ff. sault, saultable. |