salt
/sɒlt/noun, adjective, verb
salt is spelled S-A-L-T: 4 letters and one syllable. It appears 40 times per million words in written English, the 2,487th most frequent word form (wordfreq, 2021 data). As a noun, salt means “A common substance, chemically consisting mainly of sodium chloride (NaCl), used extensively as a food ingredient, seasoning, condiment, and…” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). The plural of salt is salts.
How many letters and syllables are in salt?
| Letters | 4: S-A-L-T |
|---|---|
| Syllables | 1 (from its American pronunciation) |
| In writing | 40 times per million words; the 2,487th most frequent word form |
| Wrong spellings searched | none measured in search |
| Rhymes with | |
| Same letters |
Sources: letters and syllables from the English Wiktionary's hyphenation or pronunciation and the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary; written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media); rhymes and same-letter words are computed by PlainSpell from its own word list.
How common is salt?
Salt appears 40 times per million words in written English, the 2,487th most frequent word form in the list.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
How do you pronounce salt?
- UK /sɒlt/
- UK /sɔːlt/
- /sɔlt/
Salt has one syllable (counted from its American pronunciation in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary).
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: En-uk-salt.ogg, LL-Q1860_(eng)-Back_ache-salt.wav, En-us-salt.ogg, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
What rhymes with salt?
3 words on PlainSpell end in the same sounds as salt from its last stressed vowel (/ɒlt/, British pronunciation):
Spelled with the same letters in another order: last, slat, lats.
Computed by PlainSpell from the pronunciations in the English Wiktionary (dump of September 2, 2026): a rhyme shares every sound from the last stressed vowel to the end; ordered by written frequency (wordfreq 3.1).
Forms of salt
- salts plural, present, singular, he/she/it
- more salt comparative
- most salt superlative
- salting participle, present
- salted participle, past
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
What does salt mean?
The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).
noun
- 1
A common substance, chemically consisting mainly of sodium chloride (NaCl), used extensively as a food ingredient, seasoning, condiment, and preservative.
Near-synonyms: table salt, rock salt, road salt
- 2
One of the compounds formed from the reaction of an acid with a base, where a positive ion replaces a hydrogen of the acid.
- 3
A salt marsh, a saline marsh at the shore of a sea.
- 4
slangA sailor (also old salt).
- 5
A sequence of random data added to plain text data (such as passwords or messages) prior to encryption or hashing, in order to make brute force decryption more difficult.
- 6
A person who seeks employment at a company in order to (once employed by it) help unionize it.
- 7
obsoleteFlavour; taste; seasoning.
- 8
obsoletePiquancy; wit; sense.
Attic salt
- 9
obsoleteA bounding; a leaping; a prance.
adjective
- 1
Of water: containing salt, saline.
Why the Sea is Salt
- 2
Treated with salt as a preservative; cured with salt, salted.
salt beef
- 3
Of land, fields etc.: flooded by the sea.
a salt marsh
- 4
Of plants: growing in the sea or on land flooded by the sea.
salt grass
- 5
Related to salt deposits, excavation, processing or use.
a salt mine
- 6
obsoleteBitter; sharp; pungent.
- 7
obsoleteSalacious; lecherous; lustful; (of animals) in heat.
- 8
archaiccolloquialCostly; expensive.
verb
- 1
To add salt to.
to salt fish, beef, or pork; to salt the city streets in the winter
- 2
To deposit salt as a saline solution.
The brine begins to salt.
- 3
To fill with salt between the timbers and planks for the preservation of the timber.
- 4
To blast metal into (as a portion of a mine) in order to cause to appear to be a productive seam.
- 5
To add bogus evidence to an archaeological site.
- 6
To add certain chemical elements to (a nuclear or conventional weapon) so that it generates more radiation.
- 7
To sprinkle throughout.
They salted the document with arcane language.
- 8
To add filler bytes before encrypting, in order to make brute-force decryption more resource-intensive.
noun
- 1
USAcronym of state and local tax(es) [deduction], a tax deduction whereby some portion of the money paid as taxes to state and local governments is not taxed at the federal level; the tax-deductible portion is nominally capped, but the cap is circumventable via special-interest loopholes.
- 2
UKAcronym of speech and language therapist.
- 3
UKAcronym of speech and language therapy.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How do you abbreviate salt?
Wiktionary records one abbreviation of salt: SPG.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Salt in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
| Language | Words |
|---|---|
| French | sel , loup de mer , salé , salin , saler , épicer |
| German | Salz, Kochsalz, Soiz , Seebär , salzig , salzen |
| Portuguese | sal , marujo , salgado , salino , salgar |
| Spanish | sal, salcita, salecita , salado , salino , salinero |
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.
Where does salt come from?
From Middle English salt, from Old English sealt, from Proto-West Germanic *salt, from Proto-Germanic *saltą, from Proto-Indo-European *sḗh₂l (“salt”). Doublet of sal, salary, and salsa, all ultimately from Latin sāl (“salt”), which it superseded as the general term for "salt".
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).