c1440 Promptorium Parvulorum 441/1 Salt, or salti..salsus.

1563 T. Hill Arte Gardening (1608) ii. liv. 133 Infused in warm and salty water for a season.

1634 T. Herbert Relation Some Yeares Trauaile 65 Sand and salty Desarts.

1657 R. Tomlinson tr. J. de Renou Physical Inst. v, in Medicinal Dispensatory sig. X4 Any convenient humour, whether bitter, acerb, salty, or oyly.

1670 W. Simpson Hydrol. Ess. 59 This yellow green salty liquor.

1860 R. C. A. Prior Danish Ball. I. 5 Launching over the salty sea.

1872 J. Hatton Valley Poppies II. i. 27 I smell the salty breath of the wind.

1875 S. Lanier Symphony 222 Her eyes with salty tears are wet.

1889 A. T. Pask Eyes of Thames 49 From this sandy salty loam is made the best Portland cement.

1605 A. Willet Hexapla in Genesin 219 God could turne a womans bodie into a saltie piller.

1633 T. Adams Comm. 2 Peter (ii. 7) 638 [Lot's wife] was turned into a materiall salty pillar.

1665 M. Nedham Medela Medicinæ 393 If the Salty part becomes extravagant for want of the Spirit and Sulphur to restrain..it.

1866 Athenæum 10 Mar. 332/2 This..only makes the books more salty; and we must add, that the piquancy is not diminished by [etc.].

1978 J. A. Michener Chesapeake 359 When Captain Turlock learned that his mate had studied with the rector, there was salty discussion of that churchman's habits.

1920 H. R. Chambers U.S. Submarine Chasers in Mediterranean ii. 12 We were all very ‘salty’ and ‘rolled’ fore and aft along the deck instead of walking.

1926 M. Anderson & L. Stallings What Price Glory? iii, in 3 Amer. Plays 73 I lived with a Spanish girl at Cavite back in '99... In those days I was salty as hell, a sea-going buckaroo.

1926 J. W. Crosley Bk. Navy Songs ii. 24 A salty bunch of Ensigns we, from the great Atlantic Fleet, And we're here to learn the reason why a valve must have a seat.

1939 Sat. Evening Post 23 Dec. 6/1 He was a salty old regular, with one of those wedge-shaped figures and an ugly underslung face of the texture and color of seamed leather.

1941 M. Goodrich Delilah iii. 210 The consensus was that Delilah's men now, for some reason, thought they were ‘salty’ and were looking for trouble.

1938 Amer. Speech 13 314/1 Jump salty, implies an unexpected change in a person's attitude or knowledge. The person may become suddenly angry, or an unhipped person may become hipped.

1938 N.Y. Amsterdam News 26 Feb. 17/2 Let's sound a high C on the postoffice man whose Girl Friday is ‘jumpin' salty’ 'cause he won't Reno the wife who thinks but isn't sure.

1944 C. Calloway Hepsters Dict. Salty, angry, ill-tempered.

1952 C. Brossard Who walk in Darkness xi. 67 Why do you have to get so salty when people want to have fun?

1958 Partisan Rev. XXV. 292 That man jumped salty on me.

1967 J. A. Williams Man who cried I Am xvi. 187 Oops! The dozens, is it? I made you salty eh?

1975 P. G. Winslow Death of Angel vi. 137 He was furious when I said I didn't have any [money] and got very salty.

1959 Ottawa Citizen 29 Apr. 53/1 Sixty or more ocean ships—called ‘salties’ by lake seamen—and inland ships were expected to be in transit today.

1961 Times 24 Apr. 16/6 Hundreds of miles eastward again the ‘salties’ are converging from all over the world, soon to thread the canals and locks linking our vast ocean-like lakes, and bringing a nostalgic Atlantic tang into the very heart of the Dominion.

1966 Whig-Standard (Kingston, Ont.) 5 Jan. 19/7 The only saltie to visit Kingston that year, the 17,170 ton Malmanger of Norway, sailed with her holds only half full of grain.

1971 Plain Dealer (Cleveland, Ohio) 14 Dec. c7 (heading) British salty will be last in Cleveland this season.

1926 R. Macaulay Crewe Train ii. ix 172 Arnold's old flannel trousers were rolled above his knees; his white, slim, long legs glistened saltily beside Denham's firm, brown ones.

1945 C. Mann in B. James Austral. Short Stories (1963) 77 After a time he did not so much hear and saltily smell those myriad fish.

1955 Times 7 July 5/1 Parents should teach a straightforward, ‘saltily realistic’ approach to sexual questions.

1958 Times 24 Dec. 3/6 The drawings pay marked attention to the arts. Constable..is accompanied by..the young Brangwyn, saltily caught by Phil May.

1603 C. Heydon Def. Iudiciall Astrol. xx. 416 A bitch..is 9. daies saltie, goeth 9. moneths with whelps, and hath her whelps 9. daies blind.

1896 W. W. Skeat & T. Hallam Pegge's Two Coll. Derbicisms 59 Salty, of a bitch, when she is proud, or in her heat.