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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

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Example Sentences

See Examples For:

attic salt Attic salt

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 William Alexander Clouston

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 Florence Fendall

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 Elbert Hubbard

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 Laurence Sterne

To appreciate his noble and tragic distinction with the due pinch of Attic salt it is necessary to be possessed of more imagination than most persons are able to summon up.

From One Hundred Best Books by John Cowper Powys

We are overapt to apply our nineteenth century prejudices and prepossessions to the morality of the ancient Greeks who would have specimen'd such squeamishness in Attic salt.

From The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night — Volume 10 by Sir Richard Francis Burton

To what might it not have given rise? what delightful intimacies,—what public praise,—to what Athenian banquets and rich flavour of Attic salt?

From The Warden by Anthony Trollope

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