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Added 9 October 2026

salt

/sɒlt/ noun

In Latin: sāl Wiktionary

noun Definition from WordNet 3.1, Princeton University. Pronunciation from Wiktionary, via Kaikki.org. More about salt at Wordnik → Where our words come from →

A compound formed by replacing hydrogen in an acid by a metal (or a radical that acts like a metal).
White crystalline form of especially sodium chloride used to season and preserve food.
Negotiations between the United States and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics opened in 1969 in Helsinki designed to limit both countries' stock of nuclear weapons.

verb

Add salt to.
Sprinkle as if with salt.
the rebels had salted the fields with mines and traps
Add zest or liveliness to.
She salts her lectures with jokes

adjective

(of speech) painful or bitter.
salt scorn

Origin

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 Doublet of sal, salary, and salsa, all ultimately from Latin sāl (“salt”), which it superseded as the general term for "salt".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

From Wiktionary, via Kaikki.org (CC BY-SA)

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