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WIKTIONARY VIA KAIKKI / WIKTEXTRACT
Imported dictionary evidence
These are source reports, not reviewed *SET-U ancestry. A list of templates or numbered etymologies is not an ancestor chain. Scholarly disagreements remain in the original source text.
35,981 English word records · 45,491 etymology sections in this online subset
PARTIAL ENGLISH COVERAGE · FULL CORPUS REMAINS LOCAL4 source sections across 2 headwords matching “Salt”. These are separate from the reviewed results below.
SaltEnglish (en) · Unnumbered etymologySource text
From Middle English [Term?], from Old English Selte. Compare Salter. The Staffordshire village was recorded as Selte in 1086 (DB), for a salt pit or saltworks.
Original Wiktionary entry and references ↗saltEnglish (en) · Etymology 1Source text
PIE word *sḗh₂l From Middle English salt, from Old English sealt, from Proto-West Germanic *salt, from Proto-Germanic *saltą, from Proto-Indo-European *sḗh₂l (“salt”). Doublet of sal, salary, and salsa, all ultimately from Latin sāl (“salt”), which it superseded as the general term for "salt". Cognate with Dutch zout, German Salz, Danish, Faroese, Icelandic, Norwegian Bokmål, Norwegian Nynorsk, and Swedish salt.
Original Wiktionary entry and references ↗saltEnglish (en) · Etymology 1Source text
PIE word *sḗh₂l From Middle English salt, from Old English sealt, from Proto-West Germanic *salt, from Proto-Germanic *saltą, from Proto-Indo-European *sḗh₂l (“salt”). Doublet of sal, salary, and salsa, all ultimately from Latin sāl (“salt”), which it superseded as the general term for "salt". Cognate with Dutch zout, German Salz, Danish, Faroese, Icelandic, Norwegian Bokmål, Norwegian Nynorsk, and Swedish salt.
Original Wiktionary entry and references ↗saltEnglish (en) · Etymology 2Source text
Etymology tree Latin saliō Proto-Indo-European *-tus Proto-Italic *-tus Latin -tus Latin saltusbor. English salt Borrowed from Latin saltus.
Original Wiktionary entry and references ↗INDEPENDENT SOURCE LIBRARY
More sources for this spelling
These are spelling matches, not a claim of identical senses or agreement. Historical accounts retain their own editions and limits; none is automatically promoted into reviewed ancestry.
Browse the independently attributed sources →013
MODERN ENTRY POINTS
WORD DOSSIERS
noun · verb · adjectiveexact headword
salt
Common salt and the wider family of saline substances and figurative savor; an inherited Germanic word in a deep Indo-European salt family.
OPEN THE FULL LINEAGE ↗nounhistorical form
kimchi
The English food word is a direct borrowing of Korean 김치, with the familiar kimchee spelling as an English variant.
OPEN THE FULL LINEAGE ↗nouncontrarian claim
salary
Fixed compensation, inherited through French from a Latin term associated with salt.
OPEN THE FULL LINEAGE ↗028
ATTESTED / RECONSTRUCTED / BOUNDARY
HISTORICAL FORMS
●
Present-Day English / Indo-European
salt
sodium chloride; saline substance; later figurative savor and scientific chemical class
- DATE
- Old English continuation–today
- MATCH
- exact historical form
- DOSSIERS
- 1
Middle English / Indo-European
salt
salt used for seasoning and preservation
- DATE
- Middle English
- MATCH
- exact historical form
- DOSSIERS
- 1
Proto-Germanic / Indo-European
*saltom
salt
- DATE
- Proto-Germanic prehistory
- MATCH
- historical-form prefix
- DOSSIERS
- 1
Proto-Indo-European / Indo-European
*séh₂l-
salt
- DATE
- c. 4500–2500 BCE
- MATCH
- gloss
- DOSSIERS
- 2
Old English / Indo-European
sealt
salt, sodium chloride, condiment, or preservative
- DATE
- Old English
- MATCH
- gloss
- DOSSIERS
- 1
Latin / Indo-European
sāl
salt
- DATE
- antiquity
- MATCH
- gloss
- DOSSIERS
- 1
Korean / Koreanic
김치
gimchivegetables salted, seasoned, and fermented
- DATE
- historical and modern Korean
- MATCH
- gloss
- DOSSIERS
- 1
Beyond secure reconstruction
UNKNOWN
No secure older ancestor is promoted beyond the salt root.
- DATE
- before the reconstructed salt family
- MATCH
- gloss
- DOSSIERS
- 1
037
WHERE INTERPRETATION IS TESTED
CLAIMS & DISPUTES
SCHOLARLY DISPUTES / 4
openproposedexact word
Is the PIE salt root written *sal- or *séh₂l-?
Both appear in the reviewed references at different representational resolutions. SET-U reuses *séh₂l- as the canonical dossier node and records *sal- as an alternative notation, not a second word.
resolvedestablishedexact word
Does the salt relationship prove soldiers were paid in salt?
No. Salt and salary belong to the same comparative salt family, but the real lexical kinship does not establish the viral literal-payment story.
openspeculativeposition text
What was the original salt connection?
Unknown. A salt allowance, purchase money, and euphemistic honorarium have all been proposed without decisive evidence.
resolvedestablishedposition text
Were soldiers paid in salt?
No ancient source supports the familiar claim. Pliny notes only an undefined connection between salt and military honors or payments.
CONTRARIAN TRUTHS / 3
RANK 143GRADE Aexact ranked word
Salary is truly salt's cousin—and the famous story is still false.
Salt and salary meet in the inherited salt family. Real kinship does not prove Roman soldiers received ordinary wages in literal salt.
RANK 66GRADE Aranked reveal
The borrowed name is part of the object’s history.
English kimchi directly continues Korean 김치; the graph refuses a deeper arrow until specialist evidence supports one.
RANK 184GRADE Acontrarian claim
Roman soldiers were not paid in salt.
The salt relationship is real. The viral payroll story is not.
042
BOOKS / DICTIONARIES / ARTICLES / DATABASES
SOURCES
051
FIRST USES & HISTORICAL OBJECTS
ATTESTATION WITNESSES
06
SEARCH IS DISCOVERY, NOT PROOF
EVERY RESULT OPENS A PERMANENT EVIDENCE RECORD.
Matching text only locates a record. It does not raise confidence, settle a dispute, establish cognacy, or turn a source report into direct inspection. Follow the result into its citations and editorial limits.