salty

Adjective

salty (comparative saltier, superlative saltiest)

1. Tasting of salt.
   • A few types of molecules get sensed by receptors on the tongue. Protons coming off of acids ping receptors for "sour." Sugars get received as "sweet." Bitter, salty, and the proteinaceous flavor umami all set off their own neural cascades.2018 May 16, Adam Rogers, “The Fundamental Nihilism of Yanny vs. Laurel”, in Wired
2. Containing salt.
   • At Zipaquirá, the salty ore is taken from the mine in chunks, then thrown into large tanks of water, where the salt is dissolved out. The resulting brine is drawn off into pipelines, containers, or tank trucks and sold […]1957, Americas (English Ed.)
   • My job was to couple the dumpers, full or empty, then uncouple them at the main shaft, and to open and close the weather door on the trip to the roof galleries, where the salty ore was dynamited and broken down.2008, Günter Grass, translated by Michael Henry Heim, Peeling the Onion, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, →ISBN, page 223
3. (figuratively) Coarse; provocative; earthy.
   • In the following piece she has some characteristically salty things to say about what happens when law and medicine meet.1962, William Henry Davenport, The Good Physician: A Treasury of Medicine
   • (In characteristically salty fashion, Sara admits: “I was no doubt a horrible little bitch" at this age.)2010, R. Tripp Evans, Grant Wood: A Life, Knopf, →ISBN, page 201
4. (figuratively) Experienced, especially used to indicate a veteran of the naval services; salty dog (from salt of the sea).
   • There's a sailor's tavern at the end of the street where I could find companionship if I chose (one catches salty boys going in and out at any hour) but only music matters to me now.2004, David Mitchell, Cloud Atlas, London: Sceptre (Hodder and Stoughton), →ISBN
   • Plus bits of business involving a salty Russian seafarer and overflying warplanes.2015 March 12, Bill Mann, “The film that makes me cry: Local Hero”, in The Guardian
5. (slang) Irritated, annoyed, angry, bitter.
   • Ray and Fuzzy were salty with our unhip no-playing piano player, because she broke time on the piano so bad that the strings yelled whoa to the hammers.1946, Milton “Mezz” Mezzrow, Bernard Wolfe, “They Found the Body in a Ditch”, in Really the Blues, New York, N.Y.: Random House, book 2 (1923–1928: Chicago, Chicago), page 61
   • I want to beg your pardon for making you salty that night.1969, Iceberg Slim, Pimp: The Story of My Life, Holloway House Publishing, page 162
6. Pertaining to the Sardinian language and those dialects of Catalan, spoken in the Balearic Islands and along the coast of Catalonia, that use definitive articles descended from the Latin ipse (“self”) instead of the Latin ille (“that”).