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ENGLISH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

salt.

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

4 characters1 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

noun/sɒlt/UK/sɔːlt/UK/sɔlt//sɑlt/Canada, US, cot-caught-merger
  1. A common substance, chemically consisting mainly of sodium chloride (NaCl), used extensively as a food ingredient, seasoning, condiment, and preservative.

    countable · uncountable
  2. One of the compounds formed from the reaction of an acid with a base, where a positive ion replaces a hydrogen of the acid.

    countable · uncountable
  3. A salt marsh, a saline marsh at the shore of a sea.

    countable · uncommon
  4. A sailor (also old salt).

    countable · slang
  5. A sequence of random data added to plain text data (such as passwords or messages) prior to encryption or hashing, in order to make brute force decryption more difficult.

    countable · uncountable
  6. A person who seeks employment at a company in order to (once employed by it) help unionize it.

    countable · uncountable
  7. Flavour; taste; seasoning.

    obsolete · uncountable
  8. Piquancy; wit; sense.

    obsolete · uncountable
    Attic salt
  9. A dish for salt at table; a salt cellar.

    countable · obsolete
  10. Epsom salts or other salt used as a medicine.

    countable · historical · in-plural · uncountable
  11. Skepticism and common sense.

    figuratively · uncountable
    Any politician's statements must be taken with a grain of salt, but his need to be taken with a whole shaker of salt.
  12. Tears; indignation; outrage; arguing.

    Internet · uncountable
    There was so much salt in that thread about the poor casting decision.
  13. The money demanded by Eton schoolboys during the montem.

    UK · historical · uncountable
Where this word comes from

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 Doublet of sal, salary, and salsa, all ultimately from Latin sāl (“salt”), which it superseded as the general term for "salt". Cognate with Dutch zout, German Salz, Danish, Faroese, Icelandic, Norwegian Bokmål, Norwegian Nynorsk, and Swedish salt.

adj/sɒlt/UK/sɔːlt/UK/sɔlt//sɑlt/Canada, US, cot-caught-merger
  1. Of water: containing salt, saline.

    Why the Sea is Salt
  2. Treated with salt as a preservative; cured with salt, salted.

    salt beef
  3. Of land, fields etc.: flooded by the sea.

    a salt marsh
  4. Of plants: growing in the sea or on land flooded by the sea.

    salt grass
  5. Related to salt deposits, excavation, processing or use.

    a salt mine
    The salt factory is a key connecting element in the seawater infrastructure.
  6. Bitter; sharp; pungent.

    figuratively · obsolete
  7. Salacious; lecherous; lustful; (of animals) in heat.

    figuratively · obsolete
  8. Costly; expensive.

    archaic · colloquial
Where this word comes from

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". Cognate with Dutch zout, German Salz, Danish, Faroese, Icelandic, Norwegian Bokmål, Norwegian Nynorsk, and Swedish salt.

verb/sɒlt/UK/sɔːlt/UK/sɔlt//sɑlt/Canada, US, cot-caught-merger
  1. To add salt to.

    transitive
  2. To deposit salt as a saline solution.

    intransitive
    The brine begins to salt.
  3. To fill with salt between the timbers and planks for the preservation of the timber.

  4. To insert or inject something into an object to give it properties it would not naturally have. To blast metal into (as a portion of a mine) in order to cause to appear to be a productive seam.

  5. To insert or inject something into an object to give it properties it would not naturally have. To add bogus evidence to an archaeological site.

  6. To insert or inject something into an object to give it properties it would not naturally have. To add certain chemical elements to (a nuclear or conventional weapon) so that it generates more radiation.

    transitive
  7. To sprinkle throughout.

    transitive
    They salted the document with arcane language.
  8. To add filler bytes before encrypting, in order to make brute-force decryption more resource-intensive.

  9. To render a thing useless. To sow with salt (of land), symbolizing a curse on its re-inhabitation.

    transitive
    In this place were put to the ground and salted the houses of José Mascarenhas.
  10. To render a thing useless. To lock a page title so it cannot be created.

  11. To seek employment at a company in order to help unionize it.

Where this word comes from

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". Cognate with Dutch zout, German Salz, Danish, Faroese, Icelandic, Norwegian Bokmål, Norwegian Nynorsk, and Swedish salt.

noun
  1. A bounding; a leaping; a prance.

    obsolete
Where this word comes from

Etymology tree Latin saliō Proto-Indo-European *-tus Proto-Italic *-tus Latin -tus Latin saltusbor. English salt Borrowed from Latin saltus.

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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.