Word.ws English Dictionary

old salt

old salt noun: a seasoned sailor, especially one who is hardy and forthright in manner.

Noun

old salt (plural old salts)

  1. (idiomatic) A seasoned sailor, especially one who is hardy and forthright in manner.
    • [A]n old salt don't like to keep under hatches, while powder is burning on deck.1863, James Fenimore Cooper, chapter 24, in Miles Wallingford
    • None of the spears, however, had touched any vital part, and being a tough old salt he was able to pull through.1887, Harriet W. Daly, Digging, Squatting, and Pioneering Life in the Northern Territory of South Australia, page 289

old salt meaning in Urdu

old salt in Urdu

تجربہ کار ملاح

Examples of old salt in a sentence

  • "[Y]ou'll always find an old salt at the harbour ready and willing to take you out cod-fishing or lobstering."1910, Lucy Maud Montgomery, chapter 2, in Kilmeny of the Orchard:
  • S. mariners is Captain Ahab, the vindictive old salt who sailed the southern oceans screaming for more canvas, cursing tired crews, laughing wildly into the gale.1931 November 23, “Heroes: Almost Ahab”, in Time:
  • The old salt probably had more knowledge than anyone around when it came to the ports on the Atlantic coast, but he sensed the captain needed to talk so he patiently indulged him.2004, Jane Marie Malcolm, The Goodbye Lie, →ISBN, page 61:

Forms of old salt

pluralold salts

Questions about old salt

What does old salt mean?
Old salt means a seasoned sailor, especially one who is hardy and forthright in manner.
What is old salt in Urdu?
Old salt in Urdu is تجربہ کار ملاح. See Old salt meaning in Urdu.
How do you use old salt in a sentence?
"[Y]ou'll always find an old salt at the harbour ready and willing to take you out cod-fishing or lobstering."
What part of speech is old salt?
Old salt is a noun.
What is the plural of old salt?
The plural of old salt is old salts.

Words near old salt in the dictionary

  1. Old Rizal
  2. old rose
  3. old roses
  4. Old Russian
  5. Old Ruthenian
  6. old salt
  7. old salts
  8. Old San Jose
  9. Old Sarum
  10. old saw
  11. old saws

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: old salt (page history and authors); old salt (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-au-old salt.ogg.

Cite this entry: “old salt.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/old_salt. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.