Salt water or saltwater?
salt water is a noun meaning “Any water containing a significant amount of dissolved salt or salts”; saltwater is an adjective meaning “New Keynesian or Keynesian, in reference to macroeconomics and economics…”. Use salt water as a noun and saltwater as an adjective. salt water is written as two words and saltwater as one word; they are used differently.
What is the difference between salt water and saltwater?
| salt water | saltwater | |
|---|---|---|
| Part of speech | noun, adjective | noun, adjective |
| Meaning | Any water containing a significant amount of dissolved salt or salts | New Keynesian or Keynesian, in reference to macroeconomics and economics departments on the East Coast and West Coast of the United States of America |
| Example | none recorded | none recorded |
| Forms | salt-waters | none |
| Pronunciation | not recorded | not recorded |
| In writing | not counted (the list counts single words) | 1.1 times per million words |
Sources: salt water and saltwater in the English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0); written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
Every current meaning of salt water and saltwater
salt water
- 1
Any water containing a significant amount of dissolved salt or salts
- 2
Alternative form of salt water
- 3
Alternative form of saltwater
saltwater
- 1
Alternative form of salt water
- 2
New Keynesian or Keynesian, in reference to macroeconomics and economics departments on the East Coast and West Coast of the United States of America
Source: the English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0); obsolete, archaic, dialect and rare senses left out.
Which is more common, salt water or saltwater?
salt water is a phrase, which the list of single words does not count; saltwater 1.1 times per million words.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
How many people search salt water vs saltwater?
“salt water vs saltwater” is searched about 20 times a month on Google and 10 on Bing in the United States. Google counts close variants of a query together (“saltwater vs salt water”, “salt water or saltwater”).
Sources: Google Ads keyword data through DataForSEO and Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, the average month from September 2025 to August 2026.