1835. Dana, Two Years, i. My complexion and hands were enough to distinguish me from the regular salt.
1839. Ainsworth, Jack Sheppard, vi. And why not, old saltwater? inquired Ben, turning a quid in his mouth.
1844. Selby, London By Night, i. 1. I am too old a salt to allow myself to drift on the quicksand of woman's perfidy.
1861. Hughes, Tom Brown at Oxford, viii. He can turn his hand to anything, like most old salts.
1884. Russell, Jack's Courtship, xxiii. The crew in oilskins, the older salts among them casting their eyes to windward at the stormy look of the driving sky.
1885. D. Telegraph, 11 Sept. An old salt sitting at the tiller.
2. (common).—Money: specifically (Eton College) the gratuity exacted at the now obsolete triennial festival of the Montem (q.v.). Also (generic) = a measure of value.
1886. Brewer, Phrase and Fable, s.v. Salthill. At the Eton Montem the captain of the school used to collect money from the visitors on Montem day. Standing on a mound at Slough, he waved a flag, and persons appointed for the purpose collected the donations. The mound is still called Salt-hill, and the money given was called salt . . . similar to the Lat. salarium (salary) the pay given to Roman soldiers and civil officers.
1890. Speaker, 22 Feb., 210, 2. In lively, but worldly fashion we go to Eton, with its buried Montem, its "salt! your majesty, salt!" its gin-twirley, and its jumping through paper fires in Long Chamber.
3. (old).—Pointed language; wit: whence salt-pits (old Univ.) = 'The store of attic wit' (Grose).
1580. Baret, Alvearie, s.v. Salt, a pleasaunt and merrie word that maketh folks to laugh, and sometime pricketh.
1635. Quarles, Emblems [Nares]. Tempt not your salt beyond her power.
1639. Mayne, Citye Match, 15. She speaks with salt.
Adj. (old).—1. Wanton; amorous; proud (q.v.). Also, as subs. = (1) heat (q.v.), and (2) = the act of kind; as verb = to copulate (B. E., Grose). Whence salt-cellar = the female pudendum: see Monosyllable; and salt-water = urine.
1598. Florio, Worlde of Wordes, s.v. Esser in frega, to be proud or salt as a bitch, or a catterwalling as cats.
1599. Jonson, Ev. Man Out of His Humour, iv. 4. Let me perish, but thou art a salt one. Ibid. (1605), Fox, ii. 1. It is no salt desire Of seeing countries . . . hath brought me out.
1599. Hall, Satires, iv. 1. He lies wallowing . . . on his brothel-bed Till his salt bowels boile with poisonous fire.
1602. Shakspeare, Othello, ii. 1, 244. For the better compassing of his salt and most hidden loose affection. Ibid. (1608), Antony and Cleopatra, ii. 1. All the charms of love, Salt Cleopatra, soften thy wan lip.
1607. Topsell, Beasts, 139. Then they grow salt, and begin to be proud.
1647-8. Herrick, Parting Verse [Hesperides, 186]. The expressions of that itch And salt which frets thy suters.
d. 1704. Brown, Works, ii. 202. It is not fit the silent beard should know how much it has been abus'd . . . for, if it did it would . . . make it open its sluice to the drowning of the low countries in an inundation of salt-water.
2. (colloquial).—Costly; heavy; extravagant: generic for excess: e.g., as salt as fire = as salt as may be. Also salty.
1847. Robb, Squatter Life, 142. Well, that thar was a salty scrape, boys.
1887. Fun, 21 Sept., 126. A magistrate who was lately fined 20s. for striking a man in the street, seemed somewhat astonished on hearing the decision, and remarked, "It's rather salt."
Verb. (common).—To swindle: specifically to cheat by fictitiously enhancing value; e.g., to salt books = (1) to make bogus entries showing extensive and profitable
