saltness
nounEtymology From Middle English saltenesse, saltnesse, from Old English sealtnes (“saltness”), equivalent to salt + -ness.
1
The state or quality of being salt; saltiness.
- Your lordship, though not clean past your youth, hath yet some of age in you, some relish of the saltness of time; and I humbly beseech your lordship to have a reverend care of your health.c. 1596–1599 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Second Part of Henry the Fourth, […]. Epilogue.”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act I, scene ii]:
- Salt is good: but if the salt have lost his saltness, wherewith will ye season it?1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Mark 9:50:
4 more examples
- Take five or six salt Herrings, wash them very well, lay them in a pretty Quantity of Water all Night to take out the Saltness […]c. 1752, Elizabeth Moxon, “124. To make a Herring Pye of white salt Herrings”, in English Housewifry, Leeds, page 72:
- 'Tis strange the strength which mingles with our weakness, that even in the suffering which sends the tear to the eye—not to be shed, but there to lie in all its burning and saltness—which swells in the throat but to be forced down again, like nauseous medicine; even in this deep and deadly suffering, vanity finds a trophy of power over which to exult.1831, L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], Romance and Reality. […], volume III, London: Henry Colburn and Richard Bentley, […], →OCLC, pages 190–191:
- The sea, perhaps because of its saltness, roughens the outside but keeps sweet the kernel of its servants' soul.1896, Joseph Conrad, chapter II, in An Outcast of the Islands, London: T. Fisher Unwin […], →OCLC, part I, page 13:
- We were dreadfully thirsty now. We found that we could get momentary relief by chewing pieces of raw seal meat and swallowing the blood, but thirst came back with redoubled force owing to the saltness of the flesh.1919, Ernest Shackleton, chapter 8, in South: The Story of Shackleton’s Last Expedition, 1914-1917, London: Heinemann, page 137: