business; to salt an invoice = to charge extreme prices so as to permit an apparently liberal discount; to salt a mine = to sprinkle (or plant, q.v.) a. worn-out or bogus property with gold dust, diamonds, &c., with a view to good sales, and so forth. Hence salter = a fraudulent vendor.
1872. Civil Service Gaz., 28 Dec. The magnificent Californian diamond fields are nowhere . . . only salted with diamonds and rubies bought in England, according to the well-known process of salting.
1883. Payn, Canon's Ward, xlviii. Your two friends had . . . been salting the mine. There is a warrant out for Dawson's apprehension on a much more serious charge.
1885. D. Telegraph, 22 Sept. One of the first to practise the art of salting sham goldfields.
1892. Percy Clarke, New Chum in Australia, 72. A salted claim, a pit sold for a £10 note, in which a nugget worth a few shillings had before been planted.
1894. Pall Mall Gaz., 22 Dec. 'The art of salting a mine' [Title]. Ibid. Even experienced mining men and engineers have been made victims by salters.
d. 1901. Bret Harte. . . . And the tear of sensibility has salted many a claim.
2. (American colloquial).—To be-jewell profusely: see sense 1, to salt a mine.
1873. Times, 20 Jan. 'Well Salted.' An American paper states that Colorado ladies wearing much jewelry are said to be well salted.
3. (old).—See quot.
1636. [Martin, Life of First Lord Shaftesbury, i. 42]. On a particular day, the senior undergraduates in the evening called the freshmen to the fire, and made them hold out their chins; whilst one of the seniors with the nail of his thumb (which was left long for that purpose) grated off all the skin from the lip to the chin, and then obliged him to drink a beer glass of water and salt.
1850. Notes and Queries. 1 S., i. 390. 'College Salting and Tucking of Freshmen.'
Phrases.—With a grain of salt = under reserve: Lat.; not worth one's salt = unworthy of hire; to eat one's salt = to be received as a guest or under protection: salt also = hospitality; to put (cast, or lay) salt on the tail = to ensnare, to achieve: as children are told to catch birds; to come after with salt and spoons ('of one that is none of the Hastings,' B. E.); man of salt = a man of tears.
1580. Lyly, Euphues [Oliphant, New Eng., i. 607. Among the verbs are . . .lay salt on a bird's taile].
1608-11. Hall, Epistles, Dec. i., Ep. 8. Abandon those from your table and salt whom . . . experience shall descrie dangerous
1664. Butler, Hudibras, II. i. 278. Such great atchievements cannot fail To cast salt on a woman's tail.
1809. Wellington [Gleig, Life, 702]. The real fact is . . . I have eaten the King's salt. On that account I believe it to be my duty to serve without hesitation. . . .
1824. Scott, Redgauntlet, xi. Were you coming near him with soldiers, or constables . . . you will never lay salt on his tail.
1854. Dickens, Hard Times, xvii. He is a dissipated extravagant idler; he is not worth his salt. Ibid. (1861), Great Expectations, iv. Plenty of subjects going about for them that know how to put salt upon their tails.
1855. Thackeray, Newcomes, v. One does not eat a man's salt as it were at these dinners. There is nothing sacred in this kind of London hospitality.
Salt-box, subs, (thieves').—A
prison cell: specifically (Newgate)
= the condemned cell (Grose,
Vaux). Fr. abattoir.
