salty

Etymology

It was formed from English salt + -y in late Middle English, from the noun.^{[2][3][4][5][6]}

Earliest recorded meaning

Containing salt or tasting of salt: about 1440, in the Promptorium Parvulorum,^[2] the mid-15th century in Etymonline.^[3]

Semantic evolution

The figurative senses come from salt as that which gives life or pungency, used of words and wit from the 1570s:^[3] salty meant piquant or racy from 1866.^[2][3] In 20th-century American slang it meant first, of a sailor, tough and aggressive (1920, in the US Navy), and then angry or irritated;^[2][3] the OED dates the latter to 1938, with the phrase jump salty, to become suddenly angry,^[2][3] and Green's Dictionary of Slang has examples of related uses from 1925 and 1936.^[7] Green notes a suggestion linking the sense with a dialect salty used of a bitch in heat,^[7] a separate adjective, from salt in the sense "lecherous", recorded from 1603 to 1896.^[2][8] In Scotland and the north of England the word was pronounced sauty or sawty, and a sautie bannock was an oatmeal cake baked on Shrove Tuesday.^[8] In North America a saltie or salty is an ocean-going ship on the Great Lakes, recorded from 1959.^[2]

Timeline

• c. 1440 – tasting of or containing salt.^[2]
• 1866 – piquant, racy.^[2][3]
• 1920 – (US nautical slang) of a sailor, tough, aggressive.^[2]
• 1925 – (US slang) irritated, sour.^[7]
• 1938 – angry, and the phrase jump salty.^[2][3]
• 1959 – (North America) a seagoing ship.^[2]

Modern meaning

Adjective

1. Containing, tasting of or seasoned with salt: The soup was far too salty.
2. Having the flavour of the sea or of life at sea.
3. Of talk or humour, sharp, earthy or racy; piquant.
4. (US, informal) Bitter, resentful or annoyed: Don't get salty with me.

Word family

• saltily
• saltiness

Related words

• salt
• saline
• briny

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e f g h Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
5. ^ Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
7. ^ a b c Green, Jonathon (2010), Green's Dictionary of Slang, London: Chambers; digital ed. 2016–, https://greensdictofslang.com
8. ^ a b Wright, Joseph, ed. (1898–1905), The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols., Oxford: Henry Frowde; via EDD Online 4.0, University of Innsbruck (CC BY 4.0)