Salt

Definition of Salt

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.

Hence, flavor; taste; savor; smack; seasoning.

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

- Shak.

Hence, also, piquancy; wit; sense; as, Attic salt.

A dish for salt at table; a saltcellar.

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

- Pepys.

A sailor; - usually qualified by old.

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

- Hawthorne.

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

Fig.: 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.

Any mineral salt used as an aperient or cathartic, especially Epsom salts, Rochelle salt, or Glauber's salt.

Marshes flooded by the tide.

Above 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. Jonson.

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

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

Fig.: Bitter; sharp; pungent.

I have a salt and sorry rheum offends me.

- Shak.

Fig.: Salacious; lecherous; lustful.

Salt acid
(Chem.) hydrochloric acid.

Salt block
an apparatus for evaporating brine; a salt factory.

Salt bottom
a flat piece of ground covered with saline efflorescences. - Knight.

Salt cake
(Chem.) the white caked mass, consisting of sodium sulphate, which is obtained as the product of the first stage in the manufacture of soda, according to Leblanc's process. - Bartlett.

Salt fish
a -	Salted fish, especially cod, haddock, and similar fishes that have been salted and dried for food.
b -	A marine fish.

Salt garden
an arrangement for the natural evaporation of sea water for the production of salt, employing large shallow basins excavated near the seashore.

Salt gauge
an instrument used to test the strength of brine; a salimeter.

Salt horse
salted beef.

Salt junk
hard salt beef for use at sea.

Salt lick
See Lick, n.

Salt marsh
grass land subject to the overflow of salt water.

Salt-marsh caterpillar
(Zool.) an American bombycid moth (Spilosoma acræa which is very destructive to the salt-marsh grasses and to other crops. Called also woolly bear. See Illust. under Moth, Pupa, and Woolly bear, under Woolly.

Salt-marsh fleabane
(Bot.) a strong-scented composite herb (Pluchea camphorata) with rayless purplish heads, growing in salt marshes.

Salt-marsh hen
(Zool.) the clapper rail. See under Rail.

Salt-marsh terrapin
(Zool.) the diamond-back.

Salt mine
a mine where rock salt is obtained.

Salt pan
a -	A large pan used for making salt by evaporation; also, a shallow basin in the ground where salt water is evaporated by the heat of the sun.
b -	Salt works.

Salt pit
a pit where salt is obtained or made.

Salt rising
a kind of yeast in which common salt is a principal ingredient.

Salt raker
one who collects salt in natural salt ponds, or inclosures from the sea.

Salt sedative
(Chem.) boracic acid.

Salt spring
a spring of salt water.

Salt tree
(Bot.) 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.

v. t.

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.

[imp. & p. p. Salted; p. pr. & vb. n. Salting.]

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 prepare with, or pack in, salt for preserving, as meat, eggs, etc.; hence, colloquially, to save, lay up, or invest sagely, as money.

v. i.

To deposit salt as a saline solution; as, the brine begins to salt.

The act of leaping or jumping; a leap.

Related Words

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