salt
salt [salt salts salted salting] noun, verb, adjective BrE [sɔːlt] BrE [sɒlt] NAmE [sɔːlt]
noun
1. uncountable a white substance that is added to food to give it a better flavour or to preserve it. Salt is obtained from mines and is also found in sea water. It is sometimes called common salt to distinguish it from other chemical salts.
Syn: ↑sodium chloride
• Pass the salt, please.
•a pinch of salt (= a small amount of it)
• Season with salt and pepper.
•sea salt
see also ↑rock salt
2. countable (chemistry)a chemical formed from a metal and an acid
•mineral salts
see also ↑acid salt, ↑Epsom salts
3. saltsplural a substance that looks or tastes like salt
•bath salts (= used to give a pleasant smell to bath water)
see also ↑smelling salts
more at like a dose of salts at ↑dose n., take sth with a pinch of salt at ↑pinch n., rub salt into the wound/sb's wounds at ↑rub v., worth your/its salt at ↑worth adj.
Word Origin:
Old English sealt (noun), sealtan (verb), of Germanic origin; related to Dutch zout and German Salz (nouns), from an Indo-European root shared by Latin sal, Greek hals ‘salt’.
Example Bank:
•Could you pass the salt, please?
•Don't put so much salt on your chips!
•He could taste the salt from the water in his mouth.
•He wants to reduce his salt intake.
•I could smell the salt air as it whipped through my hair.
•Most foodstuffs contain some salt.
•When salt is dissolved in water, it alters the properties of the water.
•a diet low in salt
•foods with a high salt content
Idiom: ↑salt of the earth
Derived: ↑salt something away
verb
1. usually passive ~ sth to put salt on or in food
•salted peanuts
•a pan of boiling salted water
2. ~ sth (down) to preserve food with salt
•salted fish
•We salted down a large crop of beans last year.
3. ~ sth to put salt on roads to melt ice or snow
Verb forms: 
Word Origin:
Old English sealt (noun), sealtan (verb), of Germanic origin; related to Dutch zout and German Salz (nouns), from an Indo-European root shared by Latin sal, Greek hals ‘salt’.
adjective only before noun
containing, tasting of or preserved with salt
•salt water
•salt beef
Word Origin:
Old English sealt (noun), sealtan (verb), of Germanic origin; related to Dutch zout and German Salz (nouns), from an Indo-European root shared by Latin sal, Greek hals ‘salt’.
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