| 1. | a crystalline compound, sodium chloride, NaCl, occurring as a mineral, a constituent of seawater, etc., and used for seasoning food, as a preservative, etc. |
| 2. | table salt mixed with a particular herb or seasoning for which it is named: garlic salt; celery salt. |
| 3. | Chemistry. any of a class of compounds formed by the replacement of one or more hydrogen atoms of an acid with elements or groups, which are composed of anions and cations, and which usually ionize in solution; a product formed by the neutralization of an acid by a base. |
| 4. | salts, any of various salts used as purgatives, as Epsom salts. |
| 5. | an element that gives liveliness, piquancy, or pungency: Anecdotes are the salt of his narrative. |
| 6. | wit; pungency. |
| 7. | a small, usually open dish, as of silver or glass, used on the table for holding salt. |
| 8. | Informal. a sailor, esp. an old or experienced one. |
| 9. | to season with salt. |
| 10. | to cure, preserve, or treat with salt. |
| 11. | to furnish with salt: to salt cattle. |
| 12. | to treat with common salt or with any chemical salt. |
| 13. | to spread salt, esp. rock salt, on so as to melt snow or ice: The highway department salted the roads after the storm. |
| 14. | to introduce rich ore or other valuable matter fraudulently into (a mine, the ground, a mineral sample, etc.) to create a false impression of value. |
| 15. | to add interest or excitement to: a novel salted with witty dialogue. |
| 16. | containing salt; having the taste of salt: salt water. |
| 17. | cured or preserved with salt: salt cod. |
| 18. | inundated by or growing in salt water: salt marsh. |
| 19. | producing the one of the four basic taste sensations that is not sweet, sour, or bitter. |
| 20. | pungent or sharp: salt speech. |
| 21. | salt away,
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| 22. | salt out, to separate (a dissolved substance) from a solution by the addition of a salt, esp. common salt. |
| 23. | with a grain of salt, with reserve or allowance; with an attitude of skepticism: Diplomats took the reports of an impending crisis with a grain of salt. |
| 24. | worth one's salt, deserving of one's wages or salary: We couldn't find an assistant worth her salt. |
| See under Strategic Arms Limitations Treaty. |
| See under Strategic Arms Limitations Treaty. |
| a river flowing W from E Arizona to the Gila River near Phoenix: Roosevelt Dam. 200 mi. (322 km) long. |
salt
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salt (sôlt)
n.
A colorless or white crystalline solid, chiefly sodium chloride, used extensively as a food seasoning and preservative.
A chemical compound replacing all or part of the hydrogen ions of an acid with metal ions or electropositive radicals.
salts Any of various mineral salts, such as magnesium sulfate, sodium sulfate, or potassium sodium tartrate, used as laxatives or cathartics.
salts Smelling salts.
salts Epsom salts.
SALT
1. Symbolic Assembly Language Trainer. Assembly-like language implemented in BASIC by Kevin Stock, now at Encore in France.
2. Sam And Lincoln Threaded language. A threaded extensible variant of BASIC. "SALT", S.D. Fenster et al, BYTE (Jun 1985) p.147.
[The Jargon File]
salt
A tiny bit of near-random data inserted where too much regularity would be undesirable; a data frob (sense 1). For example, the Unix crypt(3) manual page mentions that "the salt string is used to perturb the DES algorithm in one of 4096 different ways."
Salt
used to season food (Job 6:6), and mixed with the fodder of cattle (Isa. 30:24, "clean;" in marg. of R.V. "salted"). All meat-offerings were seasoned with salt (Lev. 2:13). To eat salt with one is to partake of his hospitality, to derive subsistence from him; and hence he who did so was bound to look after his host's interests (Ezra 4:14, "We have maintenance from the king's palace;" A.V. marg., "We are salted with the salt of the palace;" R.V., "We eat the salt of the palace"). A "covenant of salt" (Num. 18:19; 2 Chr. 13:5) was a covenant of perpetual obligation. New-born children were rubbed with salt (Ezek. 16:4). Disciples are likened unto salt, with reference to its cleansing and preserving uses (Matt. 5:13). When Abimelech took the city of Shechem, he sowed the place with salt, that it might always remain a barren soil (Judg. 9:45). Sir Lyon Playfair argues, on scientific grounds, that under the generic name of "salt," in certain passages, we are to understand petroleum or its residue asphalt. Thus in Gen. 19:26 he would read "pillar of asphalt;" and in Matt. 5:13, instead of "salt," "petroleum," which loses its essence by exposure, as salt does not, and becomes asphalt, with which pavements were made. The Jebel Usdum, to the south of the Dead Sea, is a mountain of rock salt about 7 miles long and from 2 to 3 miles wide and some hundreds of feet high.
salt
In addition to the idioms beginning with salt, also see back to the salt mines; with a grain of salt.
SALT
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