salt

Meanings

1. 1
   adj

   (of speech) painful or bitter

   salt scorn- Shakespeare

2. 2
   verb

   preserve with salt

   people used to salt meats on ships

3. 3
   verb

   add zest or liveliness to

   I salt my lectures with jokes.

4. 4
   verb

   sprinkle as if with salt

   the rebels had salted the fields with mines and traps

5. 5
   noun

   A common substance, chemically consisting mainly of sodium chloride (NaCl), used extensively as a food ingredient, seasoning, condiment, and preservative.

   Near-synonyms: table salt, rock salt, road salt

6. 6
   noun

   A sailor (also old salt).

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

7. 7
   noun

   Flavour; taste; seasoning.

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

8. 8
   noun

   Piquancy; wit; sense.

   Attic salt

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 Doublet of sal, salary, and salsa, all ultimately from Latin sāl (“salt”), which it superseded as the general term for "salt".