salad
(ˈsæləd)
Forms: α. 5 selad, 5–7 salade, 6–7 sallade, 7–9 sallad, 7– salad; β. 6 sal(l)ett(e, -otte, -ite, 6–7 salat, 6–9 (now dial. or arch.) sallet, 7 sallat(e.
[a. OF. salade (14th c.), a. Pr. salada = OIt. salata, Pg. salada (cf. It. insalata, Sp. ensalada):—popular L. *salāta, f. *salāre (It., med.L. salare, Pr., Sp., Pg. salar, F. saler) to salt, f. L. sal salt.
The Romanic word has been generally taken into the Germanic langs.: Du. salade (salaet in Kilian, also sla from *slade), late MHG. salât (G. salat), Sw., Da. salat; also Russ. salat.]
1. a. A cold dish of herbs or vegetables (e.g. lettuce, endive), usually uncooked and chopped up or sliced, to which is often added sliced hard-boiled egg, cold meat, fish, etc., the whole being seasoned with salt, pepper, oil, and vinegar.
For an earlier wider use see quot. 1688 in β and cf. quot. 1687 s.v. salading.
| α 1481–90 Howard Househ. Bks. (Roxb.) 398 Item, for erbes for a selad j. d. 1533 Elyot Cast. Helthe (1539) 41 Yonge men..shell eate..salades of cold herbes. 1578 Lyte Dodoens 125 This herbe..is much vsed in meates and Salades with egges. 1601 Holland Pliny II. 37 If you would make a delicate sallad of Cucumbers, boile them first, then pill from them their rind, serue them vp with oile, vinegre, and honey. 1699 W. Dampier Voy. II. i. 72 Purslain..tis very sweet, and makes a good Salad for a hot Country. 1712 Arbuthnot John Bull i. xvi, She turned away one servant for putting too much oil in her sallad. 1726 Swift Gulliver iv. ii, Wholesome herbs, which I boiled, and eat as sallads with my bread. 1846 Ford Gatherings from Spain (1906) 147 The salad is the glory of every French dinner and the disgrace of most in England. 1855 Delamer Kitch. Gard. (1861) 107 The most approved autumnal salads are those mainly composed of endive. |
| β c 1390 Forme of Cury (1780) 41 Salat. Take persel, sawge, garlec [etc.]..waische hem clene..and myng hem wel with rawe oile, lay on vyneger and salt, and serue it forth. 1550 J. Coke Eng. & Fr. Heralds §30 (1877) 64 Oyle olyve whiche was brought out of Espayne, very good for salettes. 1597 Hooker Eccl. Pol. v. lxxvi. §8 A Sallet of greene herbes. 1629 Parkinson Paradis. 468 Asparagus..whose young shootes..being boyled, are eaten with a little vinegar and butter, as a Sallet of great delight. 1660 Pepys Diary 14 May, A sallet and two or three bones of mutton were provided for a matter of ten of us. 1688 R. Holme Armoury iii. 84/2 Sallet, is either Sweet Herbs, or Pickled Fruits, or Cucumbers, Samphire, Elder-Buds, Broom-Buds, &c. eaten with Roasted Meats. 1707 Curios. in Husb. & Gard. 173 Samphire..is very good in Sallets. 1716 Addison Freeholder No. 30 ¶5 Pudding, which, it must be confess'd, is not so elegant a Dish as Frog and Sallet. 1908 A. Noyes Drake vi, Sallets mixed with sugar and cinnamon. |
b. fig. and allusively, as a type of something mixed (
† or savoury).
| 1601 Shakes. All's Well iv. v. 18 She was the sweete Margerom of the sallet, or rather the hearbe of grace. 1602 ― Ham. ii. ii. 462, I remember one said, there was no Sallets in the lines, to make the matter sauoury. a 1635 Corbet Iter Bor. (1647) 487 The Puritan, the Anabaptist, Brownist, Like a grand sallet. 1774 Goldsm. Retal. 11 Our Garrick's a salad, for in him we see Oil, vinegar, sugar, and saltness agree. 1831 Gen. P. Thompson Exerc. (1842) I. 373 How the united robbers, after a sallad of murder and Te Deums, of conflagrations and general fasts, succeeded in dividing Poland. 1856 F. Saunders (title) Salad for the Social. 1893 Nation (N.Y.) LVII. 133/1 Close at hand the building is an entertaining salad of styles. |
2. a. Any vegetable or herb used in a raw state as an article of food,
esp. in the kind of dish described in 1;
= salad-herb. See also
corn-salad.
| c 1460 J. Russell Bk. Nurture 97 Beware of saladis, grene metis, and of frutes rawe. a 1500 Flower & Leaf lix, They yede about gadring Plesaunt salades, which they made hem ete. 1577 B. Googe Heresbach's Husb. ii. (1586) 52 b, And your Potte hearbes and Sallets in another place. 1621 Burton Anat. Mel. i. ii. ii. i. 91 That all rawe hearbs and sallets breed Melancholy blood, except Buglosse and Lettice. 1643 Sir T. Browne Relig. Med. ii. §1, I could digest a Sallad gathered in a Church-yard, as well as in a Garden. 1673 Ray Journ. Low C. 395 They are very temperate in their diet, eating a great deal of sallet and but little flesh. 1784 Cowper Task vi. 304 To pick A cheap but wholesome sallad from the brook. 1870 Dickens E. Drood iii, The Cloisterham children grow small salad in the dust of abbots and abbesses, and make dirt-pies of nuns and friars. 1887 C. A. Moloney Forestry W. Afr. 273 Watercress (Nasturtium officinale..). The well-known salad. |
b. spec. (
dial. and
U.S.) Lettuce.
| 1838 Philadelphia Ledger July (Bartlett), Salad goes to head by the middle of May, on Vancouver's Island. 1860 Darlington's Amer. Weeds, etc. 205 Those forms known as Curled and Head Salad. 1877 Holderness Gloss., Sallit..the lettuce plant before preparation for the table. |
† c. in proverbial or allusive use,
esp. in
to pick a salad, (
a) to be engaged in some trivial occupation, (
b) to make a selection (
out of).
Obs.| 1520 Whitinton Vulg. 2 He that laboreth nothyng holy, but catcheth a patche of euery thyng, is mete to pycke a salet. 1550 Bale Eng. Votaries ii. 5 b, Angisus..byshopp of Metis, vsurpynge the hygh stewardshypp of Fraunce, at layser made the kynge to go pyke a salett. 1568 in Strype Ann. Ref. (1709) I. lii. 525 As for your new Doctors, it is good to pick a Sallet out of them, now and then. 1590 Greene Never too late Wks. (Grosart) VIII. 102 If not, like an vnthankefull Hackney-man shee meant to tourne him into the bare leas, and set him as a tyrde iade to picke a sallet. 1601 Shakes. All's Well iv. v. 15 'Twas a good Lady. Wee may picke a thousand sallets ere wee light on such another hearbe. 1603 Dekker Batchelors Banquet Wks. (Grosart) I. 176, I would haue turnd the queane out of doors to picke a Sallet. |
3. attrib., as
salad bowl,
salad-cream,
salad-dish,
salad-dressing,
salad-eater,
salad fork,
salad leaf,
salad-plate,
salad-root,
salad-spoon;
salad bar chiefly
U.S., a servery from which a salad may be obtained;
salad basket, (
a) a wire basket in which superfluous moisture is shaken from the constituents of a salad after washing; (
b)
slang [
tr. Fr. panier à salade], a police van, ‘Black Maria’;
salad burnet, the common burnet,
Poterium Sanguisorba;
† salad clover,
Melilotus cærulea;
salad days, days of youthful inexperience; also
attrib. in sing.;
salad furniture (see
furniture 6 b);
salad-herb ?
Obs.,
= sense 2;
salad rocket,
Eruca sativa (Miller
Plant-n. 1884);
salad servers, a large spoon and fork for serving salads;
† salad sorrel, ?
Oxalis Acetosella. Also
salad-oil.
| 1976 Amer. Speech 1974 XLIX. 116 *Salad bar, counter in many restaurants, with ingredients from which the diner can make his own salad. 1978 Times 23 Apr. 12/6 The..assistant manageress..led me to the salad bar with its two kinds of salad, four kinds of bread and four kinds of salad dressing. |
| 1906 Mrs. Beeton's Bk. Househ. Managem. xxxv. 1092 Where a *salad basket is not available, the materials should be well drained and shaken in a colander. 1962 P. Brickhill Deadline vi. 83 A row of large ‘Black Marias’, or, as I learned, ‘paniers à salade’ (salad baskets) as the French call them. 1966 J. Dos Passos Best Times (1968) ii. 54 The French cooks were already out..whirling the salad around in wire salad-baskets to dry it. 1975 H. McCutcheon Instrument of Vengeance iii. 52 There will be a salad basket here soon... What you call, I think, a Black Maria. |
| 1773 J. Wedgwood Let. 21 Nov. (1965) 156 *Sa[lad] Bowles, and boats. 1837 Barham Ingol. Leg. Ser. i. Spectre of Tappington, Curled like a head of celery in a salad-bowl. 1867 Trollope Last Chron. Barset I. xxxii. 267 A bitter leaf will now and then make its way into your salad-bowl. 1921 Daily Colonist (Victoria, B.C.) 22 Oct. 7/7 (Advt.), China salad bowls—hand painted. 1980 Berkeley Graduate Oct. 5/2 Even in California, the salad bowl of the nation, thousands of people were hungry. |
| 1854 S. Thomson Wild Fl. iii. (1861) 236 The Poterium sanguisorba,..derives its English name of *salad-burnet from its being used as a salad. |
| 1562 Turner Herbal ii. 42, I know no Englishe name for it [sc. Lotus urbana]: howbeit, it may be named..gardin clauer or four clauer, or *sallat clauer. |
| 1858 Simmonds Dict. Trade, *Salad-cream, a prepared dressing for salads. 1976 D. Clark Dread & Water ii. 26 A woman..was shaking salad cream from a bottle. |
| 1606 Shakes. Ant. & Cl. i. v. 73 My *Sallad dayes, When I was greene in iudgement, cold in blood. 1865 Cornh. Mag. May 554 Being in want of a horse at the time—it was in my salad days, reader—I looked through the advertisements in The Times, and noticed one which at any rate promised well. 1882 C. Pebody Eng. Journalism xii. 83 All the newspapers that flourished in the green and sallet days of the Press have been replaced by more adventurous rivals. 1953 Dylan Thomas Under Milk Wood (1954) 60 She whispers to her salad-day deep self. 1963 Times 8 Mar. 15/4 This was a young concerto for a young pianist—it was, we have tried to suggest, not such a salad-day reading. |
| 1688 R. Holme Armoury (Roxb. Club) II. 4/1 A *sallett dish. 1710 Swift Jrnl. to Stella 26 Oct., And so you only want some salad-dishes, and plates. |
| 1836–9 Dickens Sk. Boz, Scenes xviii, An unrivalled compounder of *salad-dressing. |
| 1947 Auden Age of Anxiety (1948) iii. 70 The parlour cars and Pullmans are packed also With scented assassins, *salad-eaters Who murder on milk. |
| 1917 Harrods Gen. Catal. 892/2 Glass *salad forks... Prices on application. 1978 Detroit Free Press 5 Mar. a17/5 (Advt.), Stainless tableware..setting includes salad fork, dinner fork, [etc.]. |
| 1538–48 Elyot Dict., Acetarium,..a gardeine, where *salet herbes do growe. 1588 Kyd Househ. Phil. Wks. (1901) 243 An other garden full of all sorts of sallet hearbes. 1629 Parkinson Parad. 468 Asparagus is a principall and delectable Sallet herbe..boyled. 1767 Abercrombie Ev. Man his own Gard. (1803) 665/2 Sallad Herbs:..the principal..are lettuce, endive, cellery, and small herbs, such as cresses, mustard, radish, &c. 1796 Salad herb [see burnet n.2 1]. |
| 1927 Joyce Pomes Penyeach, The still garden where a child Gathers the simple *salad leaves. |
| 1881 C. C. Harrison Woman's Handiwork iii. 219 The little *salad-plates were silver-gilt. 1976 G. McDonald Confess, Fletch (1977) xxxii. 150 Sylvia entered with salad plates. The salad consisted of..cold, canned peas. |
| 1573 in Nichols Progr. Q. Eliz. (1823) I. 370 Item, for *sallet roots 0 2. |
| 1907 Yesterday's Shopping (1969) 148/2 *Salad Servers, boxwood..set 1/1. 1978 ‘M. Delving’ No Sign of Life v. 94 Betsy is a carver... She carves the handles of salad servers and jugs for me. |
| 1611 Cotgr. s.v. Salette, Petite salette, Pettie Sorrell, *sallet Sorrell. |
| 1858 Simmonds Dict. Trade, *Salad-spoon, a wooden, ivory, or other spoon, for mixing and serving salad. |