salt

eat salt with be a guest of. British dated

like a dose of salts: seedose.

put salt on the tail of capture.

☞ This phrase alludes to the humorous advice traditionally given to young children about the best way to catch a bird.

rub salt into the (or someone's) wound make a painful experience even more painful for someone.

salt the books fraudulently increase the apparent value of an invoice or account. informal

salt a mine fraudulently make a mine appear to be a paying one by placing rich ore into it. informal

the salt of the earth a person or group of people of great kindness, reliability, or honesty.

☞ This phrase comes from Matthew 5:13: 'Ye are the salt of the earth: but if the salt have lost his savour, wherewith shall it be salted?'

sit below the salt be of lower social standing or worth.

☞ This expression derives from the former custom of placing a large salt cellar midway down a long dining table at which people were seated in order of rank.

take something with a pinch (or grain) of salt regard something as exaggerated; believe only part of something.

☞ The addition of a small amount of salt may make food more palatable. The sentiment is expressed in Latin by cum grano salis.

2013New Statesman Perhaps his invectives against men who 'get down in the gutter and frankly worship dollars' can be taken with a pinch of salt, given Twain's obsession with profit and addiction to calamitous investments.

worth your salt good or competent at the job or profession specified.

☞ Roman soldiers were paid a salarium (source of English salary), which was literally 'money to buy salt'.

2000Saga Magazine Every place setting is measured with a ruler because no butler worth his salt wants to get to the end of a table with say, four settings left, and nowhere to put them.