SALTY (saltier, saltiest)

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

IPA (US):

Irregular inflected forms: saltier    , saltiest   

 Dictionary entry overview: What does salty mean? 

• SALTY (adjective)
  The adjective SALTY has 3 senses:

1. engagingly stimulating or provocative

2. containing or filled with salt

3. one of the four basic taste sensations; like the taste of sea water

  Familiarity information: SALTY used as an adjective is uncommon.

 Dictionary entry details 

• SALTY (adjective)

Comparative: saltier   
Superlative: saltiest   

Sense 1

Meaning:

Engagingly stimulating or provocative

Synonyms:

piquant; salty

Context example:

salty language

Similar:

stimulating (rousing or quickening activity or the senses)

Derivation:

saltiness (language or humor that is down-to-earth)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Containing or filled with salt

Context example:

salt water

Similar:

brackish; briny (slightly salty (especially from containing a mixture of seawater and fresh water))

saliferous (containing or yielding salt)

saline (containing salt)

saltish (somewhat salty)

Also:

tasty (pleasing to the sense of taste)

Antonym:

fresh (not containing or composed of salt water)

Derivation:

salt (white crystalline form of especially sodium chloride used to season and preserve food)

salt (a compound formed by replacing hydrogen in an acid by a metal (or a radical that acts like a metal))

saltiness (the property of containing salt (as a compound or in solution))

Sense 3

Meaning:

One of the four basic taste sensations; like the taste of sea water

Similar:

tasty (pleasing to the sense of taste)

Derivation:

salt; saltiness (the taste experience when common salt is taken into the mouth)

 Context examples 

The lightest ice is on top, and the saltiest liquid is heavy enough to sink to the bottom.

(Ganymede may harbor 'club sandwich' of oceans and ice, NASA)

We've all heard it: eating salty foods makes you thirstier.

(Salty Diet Makes You Hungry, Not Thirsty, The Titi Tudorancea Bulletin)

Scientists analyzing data from NASA's Cassini mission have firm evidence the ocean inside Saturn's largest moon, Titan, might be as salty as Earth's Dead Sea.

(Ocean on Saturn moon could be as salty as the Dead Sea, NASA)

The chicken was tough, the tongue too salty, and the chocolate wouldn't froth properly.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)

Imagine so salty a phrase on the lips of the Humphrey Van Weyden of a few months gone!

(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)

The Galileo mission found strong evidence that a subsurface ocean of salty water is in contact with a rocky seafloor.

(NASA Issues 'Remastered' View of Jupiter's Moon Europa, NASA)

For example, salts can become hydrated by pulling water vapor from the atmosphere, and this process can form drops of salty water.

(Recurring Martian Streaks: Flowing Sand, Not Water?, NASA)

Warmer, saltier water from the depths is ferried to the surface, where air chills it and makes it denser than the water below.

(Data from robotic drifters explain mysterious holes in Antarctic sea ice, National Science Foundation)

The discovery suggests that the salty subsurface ocean of Europa may chemically resemble Earth's oceans more than previously thought, challenging decades of supposition about the composition of those waters.

(Table Salt Compound Spotted on Europa, NASA)

Since the late 1800s, however, alligators have often been spotted in salty environments in Southeast coastal areas.

(Alligators, rulers of the swamps, link marine and freshwater ecosystems, NSF)