Word.ws English Dictionary

worth one's salt

UK/ˈwɜːθ wʌnz ˈsɒlt//ˈwɝθ wʌnz ˈsɔlt/

worth one's salt adjective: adept or competent, especially at one's occupation.

Adjective

worth one's salt (not comparable)

  1. (idiomatic) Adept or competent, especially at one's occupation.
    • Any doctor worth their salt should be able to correctly diagnose the illness.
    • [T]he encouragement for Shipwrights continues great at the Capital; to which all young People are naturally deſirous to come, whenever they fancy their abilities would diſtinguiſh them, or find a deſire to improve themſelves in their profeſſion; which two claſſes comprehend all the Shipwrights that...1786, A[lexander] Dalrymple, A Fair State of the Case between the East India Company and the Owners of Ships Now in Their Service. […], London: Printed by George Bigg …; and sold by J. Sewell, […]...

Synonyms of worth one's salt

Origin of worth one's salt

First attested in 1805. Perhaps referencing the derivation of the word salary from Latin sal (“salt”), which is correct (though the related idea that soldiers were paid in salt is not). Or more generally from the fact that salt was a fairly valuable commodity in pre-modern times.

Questions about worth one's salt

What does worth one's salt mean?
Worth one's salt means adept or competent, especially at one's occupation.
What part of speech is worth one's salt?
Worth one's salt is an adjective.
How do you pronounce worth one's salt?
Worth one's salt is pronounced /ˈwɜːθ wʌnz ˈsɒlt/ (UK).

Words near worth one's salt in the dictionary

  1. Worth County
  2. Worth disease
  3. worth every penny
  4. worth it
  5. Worth Matravers
  6. worth one's salt
  7. worth one's weight in gold
  8. worth one's weight in salt
  9. worth one's while
  10. Worth syndrome
  11. worth the whistle

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: worth one's salt (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-us-worth one's salt.mp3, En-au-worth one's salt.ogg.

Cite this entry: “worth one's salt.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/worth_one%27s_salt. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.