salt

salt in proverbial use, salt is taken as the type of a necessary adjunct to food, and hence as a symbol of hospitality (as in the expression, to eat a person's salt).
help you to salt, help you to sorrow proverbial saying, mid 17th century, in which salt is regarded as a sign of bad luck (especially if spilt at table).
put salt on the tail of capture (with reference to jocular directions given to children for catching a bird).
rub salt into the wound make a painful experience even more painful for someone.
salt a mine introduce extraneous ore or other material into a mineral sample to make the source seem rich. Compare salt the books below.
Salt Lake City is the capital of Utah, situated near the south-eastern shores of the Great Salt Lake, founded in 1847 by Brigham Young. The city is the world headquarters of the Church of Latter-Day Saints (Mormons).
salt of the earth a person or group of people of great kindness, reliability, or honesty; originally with biblical allusion to Matthew 5:13.
salt the books show receipts as larger than they really have been (compare salt a mine above).
take something with a pinch (or grain) of salt regard something as exaggerated; believe only part of something (from the modern Latin phrase cum grano salis ‘with a grain of salt’, recorded from the mid 17th century).
worth one's salt good or competent at the job or profession specified.

See also Attic salt, barrel of salt, below the salt, pillar of salt.