Edit page | Page history | Printable version

Salt

1. To sprinkle, impregnate, or season with salt; to preserve with salt or in brine; to supply with salt; as, to salt fish, beef, or pork; to salt cattle.

2. To fill with salt between the timbers and planks, as a ship, for the preservation of the timber. To salt a mine, to artfully deposit minerals in a mine in order to deceive purchasers regarding its value. To salt away, To salt down, to prepare with, or pack in, salt for preserving, as meat, eggs, etc.; hence, colloquially, to save, lay up, or invest sagely, as money.

Origin: Salted; Salting.

1. The chloride of sodium, a substance used for seasoning food, for the preservation of meat, etc. It is found native in the earth, and is also produced, by evaporation and crystallization, from sea water and other water impregnated with saline particles.

2. Hence, flavor; taste; savor; smack; seasoning. Though we are justices and doctors and churchmen . . . We have some salt of our youth in us. (Shak)

3. Hence, also, piquancy; wit; sense; as, attic salt.

4. A dish for salt at table; a saltcellar. I out and bought some things; among others, a dozen of silver salts. (Pepys)

5. A sailor; usually qualified by old. Around the door are generally to be seen, laughing and gossiping, clusters of old salts. (Hawthorne)

6. (Science: chemistry) The neutral compound formed by the union of an acid base; thus, sulphuric acid and iron form the salt sulphate of iron or green vitriol.

except in case of ammonium salts, accurately speaking, it is the acid radical which unites with the base or basic radical, with the elimination of hydrogen, of water, or of analogous compounds as side products. In the case of diacid and triacid bases, and of dibasic and tribasic acids, the mutual neutralization may vary in degree, producing respectively basic, neutral, or acid salts see phrases below.

7. That which preserves from corruption or error; that which purifies; a corrective; an antiseptic; also, an allowance or deduction; as, his statements must be taken with a grain of salt. Ye are the salt of the earth. (Matt. V. 13)

8. Any mineral salt used as an aperient or cathartic, especially epsom salts, rochelle salt, or glauber's salt.

9. Marches flooded by the tide. Above the salt, Below the salt, phrases which have survived the old custom, in the houses of people of rank, of placing a large saltcellar near the middle of a long table, the places above which were assigned to the guests of distinction, and those below to dependents, inferiors, and poor relations. See Saltfoot. His fashion is not to take knowledge of him that is beneath him in clothes. He never drinks below the salt. (B.

(Science: medicine) Jonson) acid salt, a f13

salt analogous to an oxy salt, but containing sulphur in place of oxygen.

Origin: AS. Sealt; akin to os. & OFries. Salt, D. Zout, g. Salz, Icel, Sw, & dan. Salt, L. Sal, gr, Russ. Sole, ir. & gael. Salann, W. Halen, of unknown origin. Cf. Sal, salad, salary, saline, sauce, sausage.

1. Of or relating to salt; abounding in, or containing, salt; prepared or preserved with, or tasting of, salt; salted; as, salt beef; salt water. Salt tears.

2. Overflowed with, or growing in, salt water; as, a salt marsh; salt grass.

3. Bitter; sharp; pungent. I have a salt and sorry rheum offends me. (Shak)

4. Salacious; lecherous; lustful.

(Science: chemistry) salt acid, an American bombycid moth (Spilosoma acreae which is very destructive to the salt-marsh grasses and to other crops. Called also wooly bear.

(Science: botany) salt-marsh fleabane, a small leguminous tree (Halimodendron argenteum) growing in the salt plains of the Caspian region and in Siberia. Salt water, water impregnated with salt, as that of the ocean and of certain seas and lakes; sometimes, also tears. Mine eyes are full of tears, i can not see; And yet salt water blinds them not so much but they can see a sort of traitors here. (Shak) salt-water sailor, an ocean mariner. Salt-water tailor.

(Science: zoology) see bluefish.

Origin: AS. Sealt, salt. See salt. The taste experience when salt is taken into the mouth.