salt water, n. and a.
[salt a.1 Cf. LG. salt-wat(t)er, MDu. sout-water, G. salz-wasser.]
A. n. a. (stressed salt ˈwater). Water impregnated with salt; sea-water.
| a 1000 Ags. Ps. (Th.) lxxvi. 13 Sweᵹ micel sealtera wætera. c 1200 Trin. Coll. Hom. 151 Ðe wop þe man wepeð for his aȝene sinne is swiðe biter alse saltwater. c 1440 Promp. Parv. 441/1 Salt water, or see water, Nereis. 1497 Naval Acc. Hen. VII (1896) 129 Gonnepoudre wett in saltwater. 1530 Palsgr. 265/1 Saltewater, saulmevre. 1580 Lyly Euphues (Arb.) 296, I laboured no otherwise, then..he that hauing sore eyes rubbeth them with salt water. 1610 Holland Camden's Brit. (1637) 268 Salt-waters, out of which they boile salt. 1669 Worlidge Syst. Agric. 5 By watering the place with brine or Salt water. 1706 E. Ward Wooden World Diss. (1708) 8 Seeng his Spot of Territory incircl'd with Salt-water. 1841 Penny Cycl. XX. 368/2 Hot parts of the world where the soil is saline or there is salt water in the vicinity. |
| fig. a 1450 Myrc Festial xxvii. 120 When he passyth þrogh þe salt-watyr of payne of deþe. |
b. Applied humorously to tears. (See
salt n.1 2 e.)
| c 1400 Laud Troy Bk. 15694 He wepis..Many a tere of salt watir. 1592 Shakes. Rom. & Jul. ii. iii. 71 How much salt water throwne away in wast, To season Loue that of it doth not tast. 1612 Webster White Devil K, 'Faith, for some few howers salt water will runne most plentifully in euery Office o' th Court. 1833 L. Ritchie Wand. by Loire 128 Let us hear what all this salt water is about. |
c. Applied to the sea. Hence, a jocular form of address to a sailor.
| 1839 H. Ainsworth Jack Sheppard I. vi. 111 ‘Hark'ee, Ben’, said the old sailor,..‘you may try, but dash my timbers if you'll ever cross the Thames to-night’. ‘And why not, old saltwater?’ inquired Ben. 1843 Marryat M. Violet xv, When this sun will have disappeared behind the salt-water. |
B. attrib. as adj. (stressed
ˈsalt-water).
a. Of, pertaining to, consisting of, or living in salt water.
| 1528 Lett. & Pap. Hen. VIII, IV. ii. 2232 The warffs gittes and saltwater bancks, beginning at Calais and continuing to Graveling. 1601 Shakes. Twel. N. v. i. 72 Notable Pyrate, thou salt-water Theefe. 1796 Withering Brit. Plants (ed. 3) IV. 129 Salt water ditches between Greenwich and Woolwich. 1810 Scott Let. to Miss J. Baillie 19 July in Lockhart, The salt-water loch called Loch an Gaoil. 1858 O. W. Holmes Aut. Breakf.-t. i, It does not follow that I wish to be pickled in brine because I like a salt-water plunge at Nahant. 1859 Darwin Orig. Spec. xii. 384 Salt⁓water fish can with care be slowly accustomed to live in fresh water. 1892 Gunter Miss Dividends i. iv, The train..crossing the Harlem, skirts that pretty little salt water river. |
b. In specific names of sea animals.
| 1828 Sir H. Davy Salmonia (1840) 72 The salt-water louse adheres to his sides. 1888 Goode Amer. Fishes 405 The bluefish, which is called the ‘Salt water Tailor’. 1892 Chamb. Encycl. s.v. Terrapin, The terrapin par excellence is the Malacoclemmys palustris, the diamond-back salt⁓water terrapin. |
c. U.S. and
W. Indies. Used to designate a recent,
usu. black, immigrant (see
quots.).
| 1774 E. Long Hist. Jamaica II. iii. iii. 410 The Creole Blacks differ much from the Africans, not only in manners, but in beauty of shape, feature, and complexion. They hold the Africans in the utmost contempt, stiling them, ‘salt-water Negroes’, and ‘Guiney birds’; but value themselves on their own pedigree. 1818 H. B. Fearon Sk. Amer. 93 If I had my will there should never be a salt-water man employed in the States. a 1820 B. H. Latrobe Jrnl. (1905) iii. 63 The ferryman..is one of several who are children of a man and woman, negroes, brought from Africa—called here salt-water negroes. 1855 F. Douglass My Bondage 323 The salt water slave who hung in the guards of a steamer..has, by the publicity given to the circumstance, set a spy on the guards of every steamer departing from southern ports. 1961 F. G. Cassidy Jamaica Talk viii. 156 A sort of half-way condition between the creole Negro and the salt-water Negro was the salt-water Creole—one born during the voyage to Jamaica. 1966 Publ. Amer. Dial. Soc. 1964 xlii. 39 Irish informants use turkey and saltwater turkey to designate a recent immigrant. |
d. salt-water taffy (
taffy1,
var. form of
toffee n.)
U.S., a type of confectionery made chiefly from corn syrup and sugar,
freq. sold at North-eastern (chiefly New Jersey) seaside resorts.
| 1894 Official Gaz. (U.S. Patent Office) 17 July 410/1 (caption) The representation of a four masted schooner with the words ‘The Original Atlantic City Salt Water Taffy’. 1910 H. T. Peck New Baedeker ii. vi. 309 And there are also itinerant venders of every sort of edible..from ‘salt-water taffy’..down to peanuts and ‘hot dogs’. 1933 Nat. Geogr. Mag. May 520/2 Next to the visitor, Atlantic City's biggest ‘Industry’ is the making and shipping of ‘salt-water taffy’. Legend says that in the early eighties a man had a candy stand on the beach. One day an unusually high tide splashed over a batch of old-fashioned, pulled taffy on a slab. Being an enterprising person, he told his customers that he had something new—‘salt-water taffy’. 1954 W. Richmond Choice Confections xxi. 385 This formula produces a salt water taffy or kiss of very fine quality... The formula can be used for regular kiss-shaped pieces or long sticks of salt water taffy. 1960 J. J. Rowlands Spindrift 65 Through the grimy windows of the salt-water taffy counter you see the cold steel arms of the taffy puller motionless and empty-handed. 1979 United States 1980/81 (Penguin Travel Guides) 48 Vermont cheese and maple syrup, salt-water taffy along the New Jersey shore..are all specialties of their respective regions. |
Hence
salt-watery a.| 1812 Sporting Mag. XL. 167 All very greasy, blowsy, dabby, dusty, salt-watery, and so on. |