Word.ws English Dictionary

put salt on someone's tail

put salt on someone's tail verb: to capture or pin down someone.

Verb

put salt on someone's tail (third-person singular simple present puts salt on someone's tail, present participle putting salt on someone's tail, simple past and past participle put salt on someone's tail)

  1. To capture or pin down someone.
    • This accurately describes the many biographers who have tried and failed to get close enough to Newman to put salt on his tail.2013, Edward Short, Newman and his Family, page 322

Forms of put salt on someone's tail

third-person singular presentputs salt on someone's tail
present participleputting salt on someone's tail
past participleput salt on someone's tail
pastput salt on someone's tail
alternative formlay salt on someone's tail

Origin of put salt on someone's tail

Alluding to an old folk saying about how to catch birds.

Questions about put salt on someone's tail

What does put salt on someone's tail mean?
Put salt on someone's tail means to capture or pin down someone.
What part of speech is put salt on someone's tail?
Put salt on someone's tail is a verb.
What is the past tense of put salt on someone's tail?
The past tense of put salt on someone's tail is put salt on someone's tail.

Words near put salt on someone's tail in the dictionary

  1. put past
  2. put pedal to the metal
  3. put pen to paper
  4. put right
  5. put round
  6. put salt on someone's tail
  7. put some timber on
  8. put someone hip
  9. put someone in a box
  10. put someone in a false position
  11. put someone in hospital

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: put salt on someone's tail (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.

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