Definition of "salt"

Take gode almaunde mylke y-draw wyth wyn, an let hem boyle to-gederys, an caste þer-to Safroun an Salt; […]Take good almond milk made with wine, and let it boil together, and add thereto Saffron and Salt; […]

1430, Thomas Austin, editor, Two Fifteenth-century Cookery-books. Harleian ms. 279 (ab. 1430), & Harl. ms. 4016 (ab. 1450), with Extracts from Ashmole ms. 1429, Laud ms. 553, & Douce ms. 55 (Early English Text Society, Original Series; 91), volume 1, London: Routledge; N. Trübner & Co., published 1888, page 11

Common salt, chloride of sodium, appears to be essential to the life of the higher animals.

1880, Arthur Herbert Church, Food: Some Account of Its Sources, Constituents and Uses‎, London: Chapman and Hall, page 24

Nando was pierced with grief, but he didn't allow himself to cry. Tears, he knew, would cost his body salt. Without salt, you die.

2013, Bear Grylls, True Grit: the Epic True Stories of Heroism and Survival That Have Shaped My Life, page 9

Around the door are generally to be seen, laughing and gossiping, clusters of old salts.

1850, Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter

I never go as a passenger; nor, though I am something of a salt, do I ever go to sea as a Commodore, or a Captain, or a Cook.

1851 November 14, Herman Melville, “chapter 1”, in Moby-Dick; or, The Whale, 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers; London: Richard Bentley

Though we are justices and doctors and churchmen […] we have some salt of our youth in us.

c. 1597 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Merry Wiues of Windsor”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, [Act II, scene iii]

I out and bought some things; among others, a dozen of silver salts.

1664 September 19 (date written; Gregorian calendar), Samuel Pepys, Mynors Bright, transcriber, “September 9th, 1664”, in Henry B[enjamin] Wheatley, editor, The Diary of Samuel Pepys […], volume IV, London: George Bell & Sons […]; Cambridge: Deighton Bell & Co., published 1894

After a few days of north-west wind, the waters of the Gordon will be found salt for twelve miles up from the bar.

1874, Marcus Clarke, For the Term of His Natural Life, Penguin, published 2009, page 97

Philander went into the next room […] and came back with a salt mackerel that dripped brine like a rainstorm.

1913, Joseph C. Lincoln, chapter 8, in Mr. Pratt's Patients

I have a salt and sorry rheum offends me […] .

c. 1603–1604 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Othello, the Moore of Venice”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, [Act III, scene iv]

It is impossible you should see this, / Were they as prime as goats, as hot as monkeys, / As salt as wolves in pride, and fools as gross / As ignorance made drunk.

c. 1603–1604 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Othello, the Moore of Venice”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, [Act III, scene iii]

And when he saw that all the dogs were flocking about her, yarring at the retardment of their accesse to her, and every way keeping such a coyle with her, as they are wont to do about a proud or salt bitch, he forthwith departed […]

1653, Thomas Urquhart, transl., The First Book of the works of Mr. Francis Rabelais‎, Book 2, Chapter 22, p. 153

These were pamphlets, often written in various Jewish vernaculars, describing the location of the Holy sites and salting the accounts with mythic and homiletical materials.

1993, The Journal of Jewish Thought & Philosophy, page 154

[…] he hath the skill to drawTheir nectar forth, with kissing; and could makeMore wanton salts from this brave promontory,Down to this valley, than the nimble roe;

1616, Ben Jonson, The Devil Is an Ass, in Gifford’s 1816 edition volume V page 67