salt

A2 Topic:Cooking & Baking

US /sɔlt/ UK /sɒlt/ See IPA manual

Freq #2622

Meanings

1

noun
A white substance used to add flavour to food and to preserve it.

Could you pass me the salt for my chips?
2

verb
To add salt to food.

Remember to salt the water before boiling the pasta.
3

verb
To preserve food by treating it with salt.

Sailors used to salt meat so it would last on long voyages.
4

noun
An experienced sailor (often "old salt").

The old salt told us stories of his years at sea.

Verb forms

Verb forms are not available for this word yet.

Thesaurus

Synonyms

1 noun · a white substance used to... common salttable saltrock saltroad salt

3 verb · to preserve food by... corn

More sal

Opposites

desalt

Word family

Forms saliferoussaltedsaltingsalts

Derived forms antisaltbesaltedbisaltblacksaltercat-saltdesaltdry-salthair-salthydrosaltnonsaltoversaltoxysalt

Related forms salad salary

Appears in

Phrases (2)

See all

salt lick
a deposit or block of salt that animals lick

Noun + noun
salt cod
cod preserved by salting

Noun + noun

Idioms (1)

See all

take it with a grain of salt
To treat something as not fully reliable or true.

Simplified etymology

Salt is recorded from Old English, and its root is Latin sal “salt.” The same root gave rise to words including salad, salami, saline, and sauce.

Etymology

PIE word *sḗh₂l From Middle English salt, from Old English sealt, from Proto-West Germanic *salt, from Proto-Germanic *saltą, from Proto-Indo-European *sḗh₂l (“salt”). Doublet of sal, salary, and salsa, all ultimately from Latin sāl (“salt”), which it superseded as the general term for "salt".

salt Middle English sealt Old English *salt Proto-West Germanic *saltą Proto-Germanic *sḗh₂l Proto-Indo-European

View etymology graph ->

Topics

Cooking & Baking Chemistry Materials & Substances

External links

# salt

**Type:** Word
**Level:** A2
**Part of speech:** noun, verb
**IPA (US):** /sɔlt/
**IPA (UK):** /sɒlt/
**Frequency rank:** 2622

## Meanings
1. A white substance used to add flavour to food and to preserve it.
2. To add salt to food.
3. To preserve food by treating it with salt.
4. An experienced sailor (often "old salt").

## Examples
- Could you pass me the salt for my chips?
- Remember to salt the water before boiling the pasta.
- Sailors used to salt meat so it would last on long voyages.
- The old salt told us stories of his years at sea.

## Synonyms
- sal

## Antonyms
- desalt

## Derived Forms
- antisalt
- besalted
- bisalt
- blacksalter
- cat-salt
- desalt
- dry-salt
- hair-salt
- hydrosalt
- nonsalt
- oversalt
- oxysalt

## Related Forms
- salad
- salary

## Roots and Affixes
- Root: salt
- Root: sealt
- Root: *salt
- Root: *saltą
- Root: *sḗh₂l

## Etymology
PIE word *sḗh₂l From Middle English salt, from Old English sealt, from Proto-West Germanic *salt, from Proto-Germanic *saltą, from Proto-Indo-European *sḗh₂l (“salt”). Doublet of sal, salary, and salsa, all ultimately from Latin sāl (“salt”), which it superseded as the general term for "salt".

## Topics
- Cooking & Baking
- Chemistry
- Materials & Substances

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