salt

A white substance added to food for taste or to keep it fresh longer.

• Pass the salt, please.
• I added a little salt to the soup.
• Too much salt can make food unpleasant to eat.

Similar words: sodium chloride

Common phrases: table salt, sea salt, salt and pepper

In certain phrases, a doubtful attitude that stops you from believing everything you hear.

• Take that claim with a pinch of salt.
• I took the online reviews with a grain of salt.
• Her predictions should always be taken with a pinch of salt.

How to use it: take something with a grain/pinch of salt (Take his stories with a grain of salt.)

Similar words: skepticism, doubt

Opposites: credulity

Common phrases: grain of salt, pinch of salt

A chemical substance made when an acid reacts with a base.

• The reaction produced a salt.
• Some salts dissolve easily in water.
• The students made a copper salt in the laboratory.

Common phrases: soluble salt, metal salt, salt solution

Containing the white substance found in seawater that gives it a strong taste.

• These fish live in salt water.
• The island has several salt lakes.
• Fresh water mixed with salt water near the river mouth.

Similar words: salty, saline

Opposites: fresh

Common phrases: salt water, salt lake, salt marsh

Preserved with a white, strong-tasting substance so the food can be kept longer.

• We ate salt beef.
• Soak the salt cod before cooking it.
• The sailors carried barrels of salt pork on long voyages.

Similar words: salted, salt-cured

Common phrases: salt beef, salt pork, salt fish

To add a white, strong-tasting substance to food, or spread it on roads to melt ice.

• Salt the water before adding pasta.
• She salted the fish and put it in the oven.
• Workers salted the roads before the snow arrived.

Common phrases: salt the water, salt the meat, salt the roads

To put small amounts of something in different places throughout a larger thing.

• She salted the story with jokes.
• The writer salted his essay with references to old films.
• Their conversation was salted with words from several languages.

How to use it: salt something with something (He salted his speech with jokes.)

Similar words: sprinkle, scatter, pepper

Common phrases: salt with jokes, salt a speech, salt with references

To spread a white mineral over destroyed land as a sign that nobody should live there again.

• The conquerors salted the land.
• After destroying the town, the army salted its ruins.
• They salted the earth as a warning against rebuilding.

Common phrases: salt the earth, salt the land, salt the ruins