Salt

subs. (common).—1.  A sailor: esp. an old hand: also SALT-WATER.

  1835.  R. H. DANA, Jr., Two Years Before the Mast, i. My complexion and hands were enough to distinguish me from the regular SALT.

  1839.  W. H. AINSWORTH, Jack Sheppard, vi. ‘And why not, old SALTWATER?’ inquired Ben, turning a quid in his mouth.

  1844.  C. SELBY, London By Night, i. 1. I am too old a SALT to allow myself to drift on the quicksand of woman’s perfidy.

  1861.  T. HUGHES, Tom Brown at Oxford, viii. He can turn his hand to anything, like most old SALTS.

  1884.  W. C. RUSSELL, Jack’s Courtship, xxiii. The crew in oilskins, the older SALTS among them casting their eyes to windward at the stormy look of the driving sky.

  1885.  Daily Telegraph, 11 Sept. An old SALT sitting at the tiller.

  2.  (common).—Money: specifically (Eton College) the gratuity exacted at the now obsolete triennial festival of the MONTEM (q.v.). Also (generic) = a measure of value.

  1886.  BREWER, Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, s.v. SALT-HILL (Eton). At the Eton Montem the captain of the school used to collect money from the visitors on Montem day. Standing on a mound at Slough, he waved a flag, and persons appointed for the purpose collected the donations. The mound is still called SALT-HILL, and the money given was called SALT. The word salt is similar to the Latin sala′rium (salary), the pay given to Roman soldiers and civil officers.

  1890.  Speaker, 22 Feb., 210, 2. In lively, but worldly fashion we go to Eton, with its buried Montem, its “SALT! your majesty, SALT!” its gin-twirley, and its jumping through paper fires in Long Chamber.

  3.  (old).—Pointed language; wit: whence SALT-PITS (old university) = ‘The store of attic wit’ (GROSE).

  1580.  BARET, An Alvearie, or Triple Dictionarie in English, Latin, and French, s.v. SALT, a pleasaunt and merrie word that maketh folks to laugh, and sometime pricketh.

  1635.  QUARLES, Emblems [NARES]. Tempt not your SALT beyond her power.

  1639.  MAYNE, The Citye Match, ii. 3. Bright. She speaks with SALT.

  Adj. (old).—1.  Wanton; amorous; PROUD (q.v.). Also, as subs. = (1) HEAT (q.v.), and (2) = the act of kind; as verb = to copulate (B. E., GROSE). Whence SALT-CELLAR = the female pudendum: see MONOSYLLABLE; and SALT-WATER = urine.

  1598.  FLORIO, A Worlde of Wordes, s.v. Esser in frega, to be proud or SALT as a bitch, or a catterwalling as cats.

  1599.  JONSON, Every Man out of his Humour, iv. 4.

  1599.  JOSEPH HALL, Satires, IV. 1.

  1602.  SHAKESPEARE, Othello, ii. 1, 244.

  1607.  E. TOPSELL, Four-footed Beasts, 139. Then they grow SALT, and begin to be proud.

  1647–8.  HERRICK, The Parting Verse [Hesperides, 186].

  d. 1704.  T. BROWN, Works, ii. 202. It is not fit the silent beard should know how much it has been abus’d … for if it did, it would … make it open its sluice to the drowning of the low-countries in an inundation of SALT-WATER.

  2.  (colloquial).—Costly; heavy; extravagant: generic for excess: e.g., AS SALT AS FIRE = as salt as may be. Also SALTY.

  1847.  ROBB, Streaks of Squatter Life, 142. Well, that thar was a SALTY scrape, boys.

  1887.  Fun, 21 Sept., 126. A magistrate who was lately fined 20s. for striking a man in the street, seemed somewhat astonished on hearing the decision, and remarked, “It’s rather SALT.”

  Verb. (common).—To swindle: specifically to cheat by fictitiously enhancing value; e.g., to SALT books = (1) to make bogus entries showing extensive and profitable business; to SALT an invoice = to charge extreme prices so as to permit an apparently liberal discount; to SALT a mine = to sprinkle (or PLANT, q.v.) a worn-out or bogus property with gold dust, diamonds, &c., with a view to good sales, and so forth. Hence SALTER = a fraudulent vendor.

  1872.  Civil Service Gazette, 28 Dec. The magnificent Californian diamond fields are nowhere … only SALTED with diamonds and rubies bought in England, according to the well-known process of SALTING.

  1883.  PAYN, The Canon’s Ward, xlviii. Your two friends had … been SALTING the mine. There is a warrant out for Dawson’s apprehension on a much more serious charge.

  1885.  Daily Telegraph, 22 Sept. One of the first to practise the art of SALTING sham goldfields.

  1886.  PERCY CLARKE, The ‘New Chum’ in Australia, 71. Who had not heard of the ‘new chum’ being taken in with a ‘SALTED claim,’ a ‘pit’ sold for a £10 note in which a nugget worth a few shillings had before been ‘planted’?

  1894.  Pall Mall Gazette, 22 Dec. ‘The art of SALTING a mine’ [Title]. Ibid. Even experienced mining men and engineers have been made victims by SALTERS.

  d. 1901.  BRET HARTE, A White-Pine Ballad. And the tear of sensibility has SALTED many a claim.

  2.  (American colloquial).—To be-jewell profusely: see sense 1, TO SALT A MINE.

  1873.  Times, 20 Jan. ‘WELL SALTED.’ An American paper states that Colorado ladies wearing much jewelry are said to be WELL SALTED.

  3.  (old).—See quot.

  1636.  [MARTIN, Life of First Lord Shaftesbury, i. 42]. On a particular day, the senior undergraduates in the evening called the freshmen to the fire, and made them hold out their chins; whilst one of the seniors with the nail of his thumb (which was left long for that purpose) grated off all the skin from the lip to the chin, and then obliged him to drink a beer glass of water and SALT.

  1850.  Notes and Queries. 1 S., i. 390. ‘College SALTING and Tucking of Freshmen.’

  PHRASES.—WITH A GRAIN OF SALT = under reserve: Lat.; NOT WORTH ONE’S SALT = unworthy of hire; TO EAT ONE’S SALT = to be received as a guest or under protection: SALT also = hospitality; TO PUT (CAST, or LAY) SALT ON THE TAIL = to ensnare, to achieve: as children are told to catch birds; TO COME AFTER WITH SALT AND SPOONS (‘of one that is none of the Hastings,’ B. E.); MAN OF SALT = a man of tears.

  1580.  J. LYLY, Euphues [T. L. KINGTON-OLIPHANT, The New English, i. 607. Among the verbs are … LAY SALT ON A BIRD’S TAILE].

  1608–11.  JOSEPH HALL, Epistles, Dec. i., Ep. 8. Abandon those from your table and SALT whom your owne or others’ experience shall descrie dangerous.

  1664.  BUTLER, Hudibras, II. i. 277.

  1809.  WELLINGTON [GLEIG, Life, 702]. The real fact is … I have EATEN the King’s SALT. On that account I believe it to be my duty to serve without hesitation …

  1824.  SCOTT, Redgauntlet, xi. Were you coming near him with soldiers, or constables … you will never LAY SALT ON HIS TAIL.

  1854.  DICKENS, Hard Times, xvii. He is a dissipated extravagant idler; he is not worth his SALT. Ibid. (1861), Great Expectations, iv. Plenty of subjects going about for them that know how TO PUT SALT UPON THEIR TAILS.

  1855.  THACKERAY, The Newcomes, v. One does not EAT A MAN’S SALT as it were at these dinners. There is nothing sacred in this kind of London hospitality.