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• attic salt
  attic salt

  noun

  dry, delicate wit.
• Attic salt
  Attic salt

  noun

  refined incisive wit

attic salt

American  

noun

1. dry, delicate wit.

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Attic salt British  

noun

1. refined incisive wit

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Etymology

Origin of attic salt

First recorded in 1750–60

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

attic salt Attic salt

Between the acts, our two Greek statues criticised the audience in loud tones, and their remarks, seasoned with attic salt, afforded a peculiar supplement to the choir of Antigone.

From The Cross of Berny by Fendall, Florence

There is the attic salt which springs from the charm in the words, from the flash of wit, from the spirited and brilliant sally.

From Book of Wise Sayings Selected Largely from Eastern Sources by Clouston, William Alexander

There would not be enough attic salt in it to save it.

From Love, Life & Work Being a Book of Opinions Reasonably Good-Natured Concerning How to Attain the Highest Happiness for One's Self with the Least Possible Harm to Others by Hubbard, Elbert

Alas, if I had only taken the supposed rapidity of my progress with a grain of attic salt!

From Atlantic Classics by Various

What he really needs is a pinch of Attic salt.

From Time Magazine Archive

Triumph swam in my father’s eyes, at the repartee—the Attic salt brought water into them—and so Obadiah heard no more about it.

From The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman by Sterne, Laurence

Among these are the following:— Allusions to Attic salt, when asked to pass the salt-cellar.

From The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 07, No. 39, January, 1861 by Various

He was rich in the kind of Attic salt which, was characteristic of Boston in the middle century; the product of an almost excessive culture erected on sound, native brains.

From Hawthorne and His Circle by Hawthorne, Julian

Employed naturally, slang may serve—in a pinch—for Attic salt; but slang for its own sake is smut on the nose instead of a "beauty-spot" on the cheek of Venus—sure evidence of a paucity of ideas.

From Brann the Iconoclast — Volume 01 by Brann, William Cowper