▪ I. ‖ sal1 Chem., Alch., and Pharm.
(sæl)
[L. (masc. and neut.) = salt.]
† 1. = salt n.1 (in various senses). Obs.
| c 1386 Chaucer Can. Yeom. Prol. & T. 257 Sal tartre, Alkaly, and sal preparat. 1460–70 Bk. Quintessence 12 Sal comen preparate. a 1626 Meverell in Baconiana Physiol. (1670) 117, I can truly and boldly affirm, that there are no such principles as Sal, Sulphur, and Mercury, which can be separated from any perfect Metals. 1674 S. Jeake Arith. (1696) 662 All Sublunary Bodies consist of the three principal Substances, Sal, Sulphur, and Mercury. |
2. With qualifying word: † sal anatron = anatron; sal attincar = altincar; † sal lambrot, corrupt form of sal alembroth; † sal marine [med.L. sal marinus], common salt (see marine a. 1 b); sal mirabile (-is) [mod.L., ‘wonderful salt’, so named by Glauber], Glauber's salts, sulphate of soda; sal soda, † sode [med.L. sal sodæ], crystallized sodium carbonate; † sal-tartre [med.L. sal tartari], salt of tartar. See also sal alembroth, sal alkali, sal polychrest; sal-ammoniac, sal enixum, saleratus, sal-gem, sal-nitre, salpetre, sal-prunella, sal volatile.
| 1775 Ash, *Salanatron, Anatron, a kind of native salt. |
| 1471 Ripley Comp. Alch. Adm. v. in Ashm. (1652) 190 *Sal Attinckarr. |
| 1678 Phillips (ed. 4), *Sal Lambrot, or Salebrot. |
| 1670 W. Simpson Hydrol. Ess. 7 They..become determined into a saline Body; in one place into Allom, in another in *Sal-marine. 1875 Ure's Dict. Arts III. 739 Sal marine is common salt (chloride of sodium). |
| 1719 Quincy Compl. Disp. 33 Glauber's *Sal Mirabilis, which is made of common Salt and Vitriol. 1879 Encycl. Brit. X. 675 Glauber's Salt,..formerly known as ‘sal mirabile Glauberi’. |
| 1471 Ripley Comp. Alch. Adm. v. in Ashm. (1652) 190 Sal Peter, *sal Sode, of these beware. 1884 A. Watt Soap-making 93 The dried sal-soda is produced by passing currents of hot air through the crystals until they fall into a powder. 1890 Anthony's Photogr. Bull. III. 129 Sal soda gives detail and bromide gives contrast. c 1386 *Sal tartre [see 1 above]. 1471 Ripley Comp. Alch. Adm. v. in Ashm. (1652) 190 Sal Tarter, sal Comyn, sal Geme most clere. 1610 B. Jonson Alch. i. iii, I, I know, you'haue arsnike, Vitriol, sal-tartre, argaile, alkaly, Cinoper. 1683 Pettus Fleta Min. ii. 121 Sal Tartar. |
† b. Short for sal volatile. Obs.
| 1703 Rowe Ulyss. Epil., Your Sal, and Harts-horn Drops. |
▪ II. sal2
(sɑːl)
Also saul, zoll.
[Hindī sāl = Skr. sāla.]
A valuable timber tree of India, Shorea robusta yielding the resin dammar. Also attrib.
| 1789 Saunders in Phil. Trans. LXXIX. 80 Saul timber, bamboo, and plantains. 1800 Suppl. Chron. in Asiat. Ann. Reg. 131/2 The forest, thro' which we passed, consisted of saul trees, setsaul, bamboos. 1866 Chamb. Encycl. VIII. 435/2 Great sal forests exist along the southern base of the Himalaya Mountains. 1867 Smyth Sailor's Word-bk., Zoll, or Saul, an Indian timber, much used in the construction of country vessels. 1873 R. H. Busk Sagas fr. Far East 331 His death..took place under a Shala-grove, or grove of sal-trees. 1875 Bedford Sailor's Pocket Bk. ix. (ed. 2) 336 The Teak and Saul of India. 1901 Harper's Mag. CII. 775/2 The gate was of solid sal-wood. |
▪ III. † sal3 Theatr. slang. Obs.
(sæl)
Abbrev. of salary n. 1.
| 1844 E. R. Lancaster Manager's Daughter (ed. 2) in Oxberry's Budget of Plays I. 110/1 Who does he suppose was to cut comic mugs before noblemen, without being paid double sals.? 1870 O. Logan Before Footlights xxxii. 433 ‘You're earning your sal easy,’ says Clown to him with some reproach. 1885 Househ. Words 29 Aug. 350/1, I say that part of this money shall be shared among us as ‘sals’, and some of the remainder shall be used for mounting the guv'nor's panto. |
▪ IV. sal4
(sæl)
[f. silicon + aluminium).]
1. Petrogr. One of the two primary categories erected by Cross, Iddings, Pirsson, and Washington to classify igneous rocks and their characteristic minerals, and broadly including those rich in non-ferromagnesian aluminous and siliceous minerals such as quartz, feldspars, and feldspathoids. Hence salic (ˈsælɪk) a.2, of or pertaining to this category of rocks. Cf. femic a.
| 1902 W. Cross et al. in Jrnl. Geol. X. 573 To express concisely the two groups of standard minerals and their chemical characters in part, the words sal and fem have been adopted. The former is employed to designate group I, mnemonically recalling the siliceous and aluminous character of its minerals. 1902, etc. [see femic a.]. 1931 A. Johannsen Descr. Petrogr. Igneous Rocks I. viii. 86 The classes are determined by the salic-femic ratio. The five classes are: I. Persalic. Ratio sal:fem greater than 7·00 [etc.]. 1974 I. S. E. Carmichael et al. Igneous Petrol. ii. 48 The most generally used index of magmatic evolution is the differentiation index (DI) proposed by Thornton and Tuttle (1960); this is simply the weight percentage of the..salic components quartz.., albite.., orthoclase.., nepheline.., leucite.., and kalsilite. |
† 2. Geol. Also Sal. [a. G. Sal (E. Suess Das Antlitz der Erde (1909) III. ii. xxiv. 626), f. S(i + al, chem. symbols for silicon and aluminium.] = sial (now superseded by that term). Obs.
| 1909 [see Nife]. 1922 Geol. Mag. LIX. 338 Wegener accepts the terminology of Suess, except that he follows Pfeffer in writing Sial instead of Sal. Ibid. 340 The boundary of the Sal should therefore be drawn at the foot of the continental slope, where the continental masses begin to rise from the ocean-floor. 1954 R. L. Parker tr. P. Niggli's Rocks & Mineral Deposits xi. 476 A granite⁓gneiss association takes the upper hand and is the reason for calling the entire outer crust the sial crust (sial or sal, containing Si and Al, besides alkalies, as the most important elements). |
▪ V. sal
obs. f. sail; obs. north. f. shall, soul.