old salt
"old-salt" is a 7-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“old salt” is uncommon English (outside the top frequency list), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- Unranked
- below top-frequency English
- 8
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - A seasoned sailor, especially one who is hardy and forthright in manner.
Corpus desk
Index EN-old-salt · old salt · English
old salt · unranked · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-UNRANKED Unranked
- LEN-LONG 8 letters
- VOW-2 2 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-THIN "O" thin
- PHOTO-UNK Peer pending
Read with this headword: Spelling guide for this pattern
Desk codes from Wiktionary headword shape, FrequencyWords rank tier, confusable-pair count, generated misspelling depth, letter-cohort book size, and photo-finish peer. Not a difficulty grade.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | old salt |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| Letters | 8 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Long-tail rank of “old salt” in English
Rare enough to double-check
old salt is uncommon English outside the top frequency list, classed as anoun. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "A seasoned sailor, especially one who is hardy and forthright in manner.".
No misspelling variants are generated for old salt in our index, since its letter pattern doesn't lend itself to common typo substitutions. This headword has no recorded confusable partner, since nothing in our dataset looks or sounds close enough to cause mix-ups.
No documented word history exists for this headword, so its spelling is best explained by sound-to-letter mapping rather than etymology. The correct English form is old salt, spelled O-L-D- -S-A-L-T.
Definition
- 1A seasoned sailor, especially one who is hardy and forthright in manner.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how old salt appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
[A]n old salt don't like to keep under hatches, while powder is burning on deck.
None of the spears, however, had touched any vital part, and being a tough old salt he was able to pull through.
Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.