salsify 
salsify (sal'si-fi), n. [Also galsafy; = Sp. sa/siji 
= Pg. sersijim = i-iw. satsofi, < P. salsijis, dial. 
serciji, OF. gercifi, rerckefi,<. It. itaascfririi, goat's- 
beard, < L. sajciiai, a rock, + fritare, rub: see 
friction. Of. sassafras.] A plant, Tragopogon 
Itorrifolitis. It is extensively cultivated as a vegetable, 
the long fusiform root heinx the esculent part. Its flavor 
has given rise to the name of oyxter-plant or wy<'taul<' of/xter. 
Also purple ynat's-beard. .See cut on preceding page. 
Black Salsify, Scmzmwm Ilitfxniica, a related plant with 
a root like that of salsify but outwardly blackish. It is 
similarly used, and its flavor is preferred by some. 
salsilla (sal-sil'ii), >i. [< Sp. salxi/la, dim. of 
saiga (= Pg. It. na1xa), sauce: see sauce."] A 
name of several plants of the genus lioiimreu. 
yielding edible tubers. B. edulis is cultivated in the 
West Indies, its root being eaten like the potato ; it is dia- 
phoretic and diuretic, cither species, as B. Salsilla, are 
natives of the Peruvian Andes, and are pretty twining 
plants with showy flowers. 
salso-acid (sarso-as"id). <t. [< L. sahus, pp. of 
satire, salt, salt down, + actdits, acid.] Having 
a taste both salt and acid. [Rare.] 
sal-soda (sal -so 'da), H. Crystalline sodium 
carbonate. See sodium carbonate, under sodium. 
Salsola (sal'so-la), n. [NL. (Linnreus, 1737), < 
L. salsus, pp. of satire, salt, salt down, < sal, salt : 
seesr/ttce.] 1. Agenusof apetalous plants of the 
order Chenopodiacese, type of the tribe Salsolcee. 
It is characterized by a single orbicular and horizontal seed 
without albumen, containing 
green spiral embryo with elon- 
gated radicle proceeding from its 
center, by bisexual axillary flow- 
ers without disk or staminodes, 
and with four or five concave and 
winged perianth-segments, and 
byunjointed branches with alter- 
nate leaves. There are about 40 
species, mainly natives of Europe, 
northern Africa, and temperate 
and tropical regions of Asia ; 10 
are found in South Africa ; one, 
S. Kali, is native on sea-beaches 
not only in Europe and western 
Asia, but in North and South 
America and Australia, also spar- 
ingly inland in the United States. 
They are herbs or shrubs, either 
smooth, hairy, or woolly, and bear- 
ing sessile leaves, often with a 
broad clasping base, sometimes 
elongated, sometimes reduced to 
scales, and often prickly-point- 
ed. The small greenish flowers are solitary or clustered 
in the axils, and commonly persistent and enlarged about 
the small rounded utricular fruit. Various species are 
called saltwort, and prickly glasswort, also kelpwort. 
2. [/. c.] A plant of this genus. 
salsolaceous (sal-so-la'shius), a. [< NL. Sal- 
sola + -aceous.] Of or pertaining to or resem- 
bling the genus Salsola. 
It is getting hopeless now; . . . sand and nothing but 
sand. The salsolaceous plants, so long the only vegetation 
we have seen, are gone. 
H. Kingsley, Oeoffry Hamlyn, xlii. 
Salsolese (sal-so'le-e), . pi. [NL. (Moquin- 
Tandon, 1835), < Salsola + -ese.~\ A tribe of 
chenopodiaceous plants, typified by the genus 
Salsola. It embraces twenty other genera, 
chiefly natives of the temperate parts of the 
Old World. 
salsuginose (sal-su'ji-uos), a. [< WL.salsugino- 
sus, salty: see salsuyinous.] In hot., growing 
in places inundated with salt water. 
salsuginous (sal-su'ji-nus), a. [Also salsugi- 
nose; < ML. salsugitiosus, salty, < L. salsngo 
(also nalatioffo) (-gin-), saltness, < salsus, pp. of 
satire, salt, < sal, salt: see salt 1 .] Saltish; 
somewhat salt. [Rare.] 
The distinction of salts, whereby they are discriminated 
into acid, volatile, or mttuffinma, if I may so call the fugi- 
tive salts of animal substances, and fixed or alcalizate, may 
appear of much use in natural philosophy. Kmjle. 
salt 1 (salt), . and a. [I. . < ME. salt, sealt, < 
t=: MD. 
Prickly Saltwort (Salsota 
Kali). 
sout, D. . 
salt, solt, LG. salt = OHG. MHG. G. sals = Icel. 
salt = Sw. Dan. salt = Goth, salt = W. hallt 
(Lapp, sallte, < Scand.), salt; appar. with the 
formative -t of the adj. form. II. a. < ME. salt, 
< AS. sealt = OFries. salt = MLG. solt = Icel. 
saltr = Sw. Dan. salt, salt, = L. salsus, salted. 
The name in other tongues is of a simpler type : 
L. sal ( > It. sale = Sp. Pg. Pr. sal = F. sel) = Or. 
a/If = OBulg. soli = Serv. Pol. sol = Bohem. 
sill = Russ. so/s = Lett, sals = W. lial, hateii = 
Olr. salan, salt. Hence, from the L. form, mil. 
salad 1 , salary, saline, salmagundi, sellei* (salt- 
cclhir), saltpeter, sauce, sausage, souse, etc.] I. 
n. 1. A compound (NaCl) of chlorin with the 
metallic base of the alkali soda, one of the 
most abundantly disseminated and important of 
all substances. Itnotonlyoccursinnumerouslocalitirs 
in beds sometime: thousands of feet in thickness, but also 
exists in solution in the ocean, forming nearly three per 
cent, by weight of its mass. It is not only of the greatest 
importance In connection with the business of chemical 
manufacturing, but is also an indispensable article of food. 
at least to all men not living exclusively on the products 
of the chase. Salt often occurs crystallized, in the isomet- 
ric system, and has when crystalline a perfect cubic 
cleavage. Its specific gravity is about 2.2. When pure 
it is colorless. As it occurs in nature in the solid form, it 
is almost always mixed with some earthy impurities, be- 
sides containing more or less of the same salts with which 
it is associated in the water of the ocean (see ocean). It 
is not limited to any one geological formation, but occurs 
in great abundance in nearly all the stratified groups. 
The Great Salt Range of India is of Lower Silurian age; 
the principal supply of the United States comes from the 
Upper Silurian and Carboniferous; the most important 
salt-deposits of England, France, and Germany are in the 
Termian and Triassic ; the most noted deposits of Spain 
are Cretaceous and Tertiary ; and those of Poland and 
Transylvania are of Tertiary age. Salt is obtained (1) from 
evaporation of the water of the ocean and of interior saline 
lakes ; (2) from the evaporation of the water rising natu- 
rally in saline springs or obtained by boring ; (3) by mining 
the solid material, or rock-salt. The supply of the United 
States is chiefly obtained by evaporating the water rising 
in holes made by boring. The principal salt-producing 
States are Michigan, Sew York, Ohio, Louisiana, West Vir- 
ginia, Nevada, California, and Kansas ; it is also produced 
in Utah. The two first-named States furnished in 1888 
about three-quarters of the total product of the United 
States. The salt of California is made by the evaporation 
of sea-water ; that of Utah from the water of Great Salt 
Lake ; that of Louisiana and of Kansas, in part, is ob- 
tained by mining rock-salt. The product of the other 
States named comes chiefly from the evaporation of brine 
obtained by boring. Salt is of great importance as the 
material from which the alkali soda (carbonate of soda) 
is manufactured, and thus may be properly considered as 
forming the basis of several of the most economically im- 
portant branches of chemical manufacture. Salt is also 
an article of great historical and ethnological importance. 
By many nations of antiquity it was regarded as having 
peculiar relations to mankind. Homer calls it "divine." 
It has been and is still used as a measure of value. 
Ley salt on thi trenchere with knyfe that be clene ; 
Not to myche, be thou were, for that is not gode. 
Booke of Precedence (B. E. T. S., extra ser.), 1. 60. 
Then, when the languid flames at length subside, 
He strows a bed of glowing embers wide, 
Above the coals the smoking fragments turns, 
And sprinkles sacred salt from lifted urns. 
Pope, Iliad, ix. 28-2. 
Abandon those from your table and gait whom your 
own or others' experience shall descry dangerous. 
Bp. Hall, Epistles, I. 8. 
2. In diem., any acid in which one or more 
atoms of hydrogen have been replaced with 
metallic atoms or basic radicals; any base in 
which the hydrogen atoms have been more or 
less replaced by non-metallic atoms or acid rad- 
icals ; also, the product of the direct union of 
a metallic oxid and an anhydrid. (J. P. Cooke, 
Chem. Phil., p. 110.) The nomenclature of salts has 
reference to the acids from which they are derived. For 
example, sulphates, nitrates, carbonates, etc., imply salts of 
sulphuric, nitric, and carbonic acids. The termination -ate 
implies the maximum of oxygen in the acids, and -iic the 
minimum. 
3. 1)7. A salt (as Epsom salts, etc.) used as a 
medicine. See&lsosmelling-salt,?. 4. Amarshy 
place flooded by the tide. [Local.] 5. A salt- 
cellar. [Now a trade-term or colloq.] 
Oarnish'd with gaits of pure beaten gold. 
Middleton, Micro-Cynicon, i. 3. 
I out and bought some things: among others, a dozen 
of silver salts. Pepys, Diary, II. 165. 
6. In her., a bearing representing a high dec- 
orative salt-cellar, intended to resemble those 
used in the middle ages. In modern delinea- 
tions this is merely a covered vase. 7. Sea- 
soning ; that which preserves a thing from cor- 
ruption, or gives taste and pungency to it. 
Ye are the salt of the earth. Mat. v. \3. 
Let a man be thoroughly conscientious, and he becomes 
the salt of society, the light of the world. 
J. F. Clarke, Self-Culture, p. 216. 
8. Taste; smack; savor; flavor. 
Though we are justices and doctors and churchmen, 
Master Page, we have some salt of our youth in us. 
Shah., M. W. of W., ii. 3. 50. 
9. Wit; piquancy; pungency; sarcasm: as, 
Attic salt (which see, under Attic 1 ). 
On wings of fancy to display 
The flag of high Invention, stay, 
Repose your quills ; your veins grow four, 
Tempt not your salt beyond her pow'r ; 
If your pall'd fancies but decline, 
Censure will strike at ev'ry line. 
Quarles, Emblems. (Hares.) 
He says I want the tongue of Epigrams ; 
I have no salt. B. Joneon, Epigrams, xlix. 
They understood not the salt and ingenuity of a witty 
and useful answer or reply. 
Jer. Taylor, Works (ed. 1835), I. 741. 
10. Modification; hence, allowance; abate- 
ment ; reserve : as, to take a thing with a grain 
of milt (see phrase below). 
Contemporary accounts of these fair damsels are not 
very good, but it was rather a libellous and scurrilous age 
as regards women, and they might not be true, or at all 
events be taken with much salt. 
J. Ashton, Social Life in Ueign of Queen Anne, I. 135. 
salt 
11. A. bronzing material, the chlorid or buttc-r 
of antimony, used in browning gun-barrels and 
other iron articles. 12f. Lecherous desire. 
Gifts will be sent, and letters which 
Are the expressions of that itch 
And salt which frets thy suters. 
Herriclt, The Parting Verse. 
13. A sailor, especially an experienced sailor. 
[Colloq.] 
My complexion and hands were quite enough to dis- 
tinguish me from the regular salt, who, with n sunburnt 
cheek, wide step, and rolling gait, swings his bronzed and 
toughened hands athwart-ships, half-opened, as though 
just ready to grasp a rope. 
R. H. Dana-, Jr., Before the Mast, p. 2. 
Above the salt, seated at the upper half of the table, and 
therefore among the guests of distinction ; below or be- 
neath the salt, at the lower half of the table, and there- 
fore among the inferior guests and dependents : in allu- 
sion to the custom of placing the principal or standing 
salt-cellar near the middle of the table. 
II is fashion is not to take knowledge of him that is be- 
neath him in clothes. He never drinks below the salt. 
B. Jonson, Cynthia's Revels, ii. 2. 
Abraum salts. See abraum.- Acid salts, those salts 
which still have one or more hydrogen atoms which are 
replaceable by basic radicals. Ammoniacal salt. See 
ammoniacal. Attic salt. See Atticl. Bakers' salt. 
See baker. Basic salts, those salts which still retain one 
or more hydrogen atoms replaceable by acid radicals Be- 
low the salt. See above the salt.Knaxy theory of 
salts. See binary. Blue salts. See return-alkali. 
Bronzing-salt. See bronzing. Decrepitating salts, 
salts which burst with a crackling noise into smaller frag- 
ments when heated, as the nitrates of baryta and lead. 
Double Salt, a salt containing two different acid or ba- 
sic radicals, as potassium sodium carbonate, K Na O> : ., or 
strontium aceto-nitrate, Sr NO^CgHgOgX Epsom salts, 
magnesium sulphate, MgSO4 4- THgO, a cathartic produ- 
cing watery stools. It is the principal ingredient of springs 
at Epsom, Surrey, England, and is also prepared from sea- 
water, from the mineral magnesite, and from several other 
sources. Essential salt of bark. See barks. Essen- 
tial salt of lemon. See lemmi. Essential salts, salts 
which are procured from the juices of plants by crystalli- 
zation. Ethereal salt, a compound consisting of one or 
more alcohol radicals united to one or more acid radicals. 
Also called compound ether (which see, under ether). 
Ethyl salts. See ethyl. Everitt's salt, a yellowish- 
white powder formed from the decomposition of potassi- 
um ferrocyanide by sulphuric acid, and composed of po- 
tassium sulphate mixed with an insoluble compound of 
iron cyanide and potassium cyanide. Ferric salts. See 
ferric. Fixed salts, those salts which are prepared by 
calcining, then boiling the matter in water, straining off 
the liquor, and evaporating all the moisture, when the salt 
remains in the form of a powder. Fossil salt. Same as 
rock-salt. Fusible salt, the phosphate of ammonia. 
Glauber's salt [after J. K. Glauber (died 166S), a German 
chemist, who originally prepared it], hydrous sodium sul- 
phate, NaoSO4.10H 2 O, a well-known cathartic. It oc 
curs in monoclinic crystals and also as an efflorescence 
(the mineral mirabilite). It is a constituent of many min- 
eral waters, and, in small quantity, of the blood and other 
animal fluids. It may be prepared by the direct action of 
sulphuric acid on sodium carbonate, and it is procured in 
large quantity as a residue in the process of forming hy- 
drochloric acid and chlorin. This salt is extensively em- 
ployed by woolen-dyers as an aid to obtain even, regular, 
or 1 evel dyeing. Haloid salt. See haloid. Horse salts, a 
familiar name of Glauber's salt. Individual salt, a very 
small salt-cellar j containing salt for one person at a meal. 
See def. 5 and individual, a., 4. [A trade-term.] Kelp 
salt. See kelp. Lemery'S salt [named from Lemery, a 
French chemist (1845 -1715)], magnesium sulphate. Llx- 
ivial, martial*, metallic salts. . u ee the adjectives. - 
Mensel'8 salt, basic ferric sulphate, used in solution as a 
styptic. Microcosmic salt. See mierocosmic. Min- 
eral salt. See mineral. Native salts, mineral bodies 
resembling precious stones or gems in their external char- 
acter, and so named to distinguish them from artificial 
salts. Neutral or normal salts. See neutral. Oxy- 
salt, a salt derived from an oxygen acid, as distinguished 
from a haloid salt (derived from a halogen acid). Perma- 
nent salts, those salts which undergo no change on ex- 
posure to the air. Per-saltt, a salt supposed to be formed 
by the combination of an acid with a peroxld. Pink 
salt, a salt sometimes used in calico-printing as a mor- 
dant. It is the double salt of stannic chlorid and am- 
monium chlorid. Polychrest saltt. See polychrest. 
Preparing-salts, stannate of soda as used by calico-print- 
ers in preparing the cloth for receiving steam-colors. 
Preston's salts, ammonium carbonate in powder, with 
stronger water of ammonia and essential oils. FrotO- 
saltt, a salt supposed to be formed by the combination 
of an acid with a protoxid. Prunella salt. See pntnel- 
las. Riddance salts. See riddance. Kochelle salt, 
sodium potassium tartrate (KNaH 4 C4O 6 .4H 2 0). It has 
a mild, hardly saline taste, and acts as a laxative. 
Salt Of bone. Same as ammonia. Salt of COlCOthar, 
iron sulphate, or green vitriol. Salt Of hartshorn, a 
name formerly applied to both ammonium chlorid and 
ammonium carbonate. Salt Of lemons. See essential 
salt of lemon, under lemon. Salt of Riverius, potassium 
citrate. Salt Of Saturn [from Saturn, the alchemistic 
name of lead], lead acetate ; sugar of lead. Salt Of Sei- 
gnette. Same as Rochette salt. Salt of soda, sodium car- 
bonate.- Salt Of sorrel, acid potassium oxalate. Salt 
Of tartar, purified potassium carbonate. Salt of tin. 
See tin. Salt of vitriol, zinc sulphate.- Salt of wis- 
dom. Same as sal alembruth (which see, under sail). 
Salt of wormwood, an impure potassium carbonate ob- 
tained from the ashes of absinthium. Schlippe's salt, 
a compound of antimony sulpliid with sodium sulphid, 
having the formula Na..|SbS 4 -j- 91I.>(). It is a crystalline 
solid, having a bitter saline metallic taste, and is soluble 
in water. Sesqui-salt, a salt supposed to be formed by 
the combination of an acid with a sesquioxid. Smoking 
salts, a name improperly given by English silversmiths 
