salt cellar
nounEtymology From salt + cellar, from 15th Century Middle English saler, from Middle French salier, from Latin salārius (“relating to salt”), from Latin sāl (“salt”). Modified based on originally unrelated English cellar.
1
A small open container holding salt for use in the kitchen or on a dining table.
- Soon afterwards, Biddy, Joe, and I, had a cold dinner together; but we dined in the best parlour, not in the old kitchen, and Joe was so exceedingly particular what he did with his knife and fork and the saltcellar and what not, that there was great restraint upon us.1860 December – 1861 August, Charles Dickens, chapter XVI, in Great Expectations […], volume II, London: Chapman and Hall, […], published October 1861, →OCLC, pages 259–260:
- And she had no love for the sea specially, regarding all winds as nuisances excepting such as had been raised by her own efforts, and thinking that salt from a saltcellar was more convenient than that brought to her on the breezes.c. 1867, Anthony Trollope, chapter XXVII, in The Claverings:
2
UK Synonym of salt shaker (“a closed container with perforated lid for sprinkling salt”).