salt

noun

1. (countable, uncountable)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”

   “Take gode almaunde mylke y-draw wyth wyn, an let hem boyle to-gederys, an caste þer-to Safroun an Salt; […]”

   “Common salt, chloride of sodium, appears to be essential to the life of the higher animals.”

   “Nando was pierced with grief, but he didn't allow himself to cry. Tears, he knew, would cost his body salt. Without salt, you die.”

2. (countable, uncountable)One of the compounds formed from the reaction of an acid with a base, where a positive ion replaces a hydrogen of the acid.
3. (countable, uncommon)A salt marsh, a saline marsh at the shore of a sea.
4. (countable, slang)A sailor (also old salt).

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

   “I never go as a passenger; nor, though I am something of a salt, do I ever go to sea as a Commodore, or a Captain, or a Cook.”

5. (countable, uncountable)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.
6. (countable, uncountable)A person who seeks employment at a company in order to (once employed by it) help unionize it.
7. (obsolete, uncountable)Flavour; taste; seasoning.

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

8. (obsolete, uncountable)Piquancy; wit; sense.

   “Attic salt”

9. (countable, obsolete)A dish for salt at table; a salt cellar.

   “I out and bought some things; among others, a dozen of silver salts.”

10. (countable, historical, in-plural, uncountable)Epsom salts or other salt used as a medicine.
11. (figuratively, uncountable)Skepticism and common sense.

    “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. (Internet, uncountable)Tears; indignation; outrage; arguing.

    “There was so much salt in that thread about the poor casting decision.”

13. (UK, historical, uncountable)The money demanded by Eton schoolboys during the montem.
14. (obsolete)A bounding; a leaping; a prance.

    “[…] he hath the skill to draw Their nectar forth, with kissing; and could make More wanton salts from this brave promontory, Down to this valley, than the nimble roe;”

15. (US, abbreviation, acronym, alt-of, attributive, usually)Acronym of state and local tax(es) [deduction], a tax deduction whereby some portion of the money paid as taxes to state and local governments is not taxed at the federal level; the tax-deductible portion is nominally capped, but the cap is circumventable via special-interest loopholes.

    “Both the SALT limitations and the doubled standard deduction expire after 2025, putting SALT on the 2025 menu for lawmakers.”

    “In general, income taxes paid or accrued in carrying on a trade or business or an income-producing activity are subject to the SALT cap. The SALT cap is set to expire for taxable years beginning after December 31, 2025.”

16. (UK, abbreviation, acronym, alt-of)Acronym of speech and language therapist.
17. (UK, abbreviation, acronym, alt-of)Acronym of speech and language therapy.

adj

1. Of water: containing salt, saline.

   “Why the Sea is Salt”

   “After a few days of north-west wind, the waters of the Gordon will be found salt for twelve miles up from the bar.”

2. Treated with salt as a preservative; cured with salt, salted.

   “salt beef”

   “Philander went into the next room[…]and came back with a salt mackerel that dripped brine like a rainstorm.”

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. (figuratively, obsolete)Bitter; sharp; pungent.

   “I have a salt and sorry rheum offends me […].”

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

   “It is impossible you should see this, / Were they as prime as goats, as hot as monkeys, / As salt as wolves in pride, and fools as gross / As ignorance made drunk.”

   “And when he saw that all the dogs were flocking about her, yarring at the retardment of their accesse to her, and every way keeping such a coyle with her, as they are wont to do about a proud or salt bitch, he forthwith departed […]”

8. (archaic, colloquial)Costly; expensive.

verb

1. (transitive)To add salt to.

   “to salt fish, beef, or pork; to salt the city streets in the winter”

2. (intransitive)To deposit salt as a saline solution.

   “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.
5. To insert or inject something into an object to give it properties it would not naturally have.
6. (transitive)To insert or inject something into an object to give it properties it would not naturally have.

   “The composition of the fallout can also be changed by "salting" the weapon to be detonated. This consists in the inclusion of significant quantities of certain elements, possibly enriched in specific isotopes, for the purpose of producing induced radioactivity. There are several reasons why a weapon might be salted.”

7. (transitive)To sprinkle throughout.

   “They salted the document with arcane language.”

   “The Libertarians wish we had won the Vietnamese War, they would like to revoke civil rights legislation, they believe (even though they are supposedly anti-state) in a stronger Pentagon. They are salted with Nixonites, Young Americans for Freedom, John Birchers, Reaganites — in other words the old Joe McCarthy gang again. I thought they had left us, or reformed, or taken up knitting.”

   “These were pamphlets, often written in various Jewish vernaculars, describing the location of the Holy sites and salting the accounts with mythic and homiletical materials.”

8. To add filler bytes before encrypting, in order to make brute-force decryption more resource-intensive.
9. (transitive)To render a thing useless.

   “In this place were put to the ground and salted the houses of José Mascarenhas.”

10. To render a thing useless.

name

1. (abbreviation, acronym, alt-of)Acronym of Strategic Arms Limitation Talks.
2. (countable, uncountable)A village in Salt and Enson parish, Stafford borough, Staffordshire, England (OS grid ref SJ9527).
3. (countable, uncountable)A surname.