salty
Americanadjective
-
saltier,
comparative
-
saltiest
superlative
-
racy or coarse.
salty humor.
-
of the sea, sailing, or life at sea.
salty tales of adventure on the high seas.
-
Slang. (especially of a sailor) toughened by experience.
proud and salty Marines.
-
Slang. angry, upset, or hostile, especially due to embarrassment or failure.
He gets all salty whenever he loses.
adjective
-
of, tasting of, or containing salt
-
(esp of humour) sharp; piquant
-
relating to life at sea
Usage
What else does salty mean? Salty is a slang term for irritated, angry, or resentful, especially as a result of losing or being slighted. This sense of salty originates in and was popularized by Black English.
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Adjectives
Etymology
Origin of salty
First recorded in 1400–50; late Middle English; see origin at salt 1, -y 1
Explanation
Potato chips and sea captains are salty. Salty can mean literally covered in salt like those delicious chips, or just crotchety, like a foul-mouthed skipper. You can't drink sea water because it's so salty — but it may be hard for you to eat certain foods when they're not salty enough. Colloquially, you can use this adjective to mean "down-to-earth," "aggressive," or "exciting." So for example you could describe a movie pirate who's tough and blunt-spoken as salty. The "exciting or provocative" meaning dates from the 1860s, from the sense of "giving life or strong flavor."
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
They also have water galore—a toxic, salty marinade that comes up alongside oil and which they plan to treat so it can be used to cool data centers and power plants.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 10, 2026
Scientists have long believed that warm, salty water flowing from the Indian Ocean around the southern tip of Africa and into the Atlantic helps support one of the planet's most important ocean circulation systems.
From Science Daily ● Aug. 6, 2026
As Banderas plays him, he’s a bearish marvel of a man with the kind of earthy soul that would have had Ernest Hemingway chugging salty dogs on his barstool all night.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 6, 2026
The meat has been described as tasting like a cross between kipper and steak or "salty goose" and, less flatteringly, as "rotten leather and fishy beef", external.
From BBC ● Aug. 3, 2026
“Sometimes I like salty tastes,” said Duane suddenly, apropos of nothing.
From "The Very, Very Far North" by Dan Bar-el
This is a story about AI and chips, but not AI chips—think saltier, a little more crunchy, lower price tag.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 5, 2026
Whether your team chicken, shrimp, or beef, the individual packets are highly concentrated and on the saltier side.
From Salon ● Jul. 19, 2026
As warm, salty surface water travels north through the Atlantic, evaporation makes it saltier.
From BBC ● Jul. 14, 2026
The groundwater in Amboy is about 10 times saltier than the sea, Large said, and for years, all drinking water has been trucked in.
From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 4, 2025
But what she brought back was familiar, the dried fish even saltier, and she sang, with an amused expression, the song the women sang at the center.
From "Half of a Yellow Sun" by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Stewart did not refrain from expressing this opinion in the saltiest terms on-air, especially to Carlson, the show’s co-host who was cast as the overgrown college Republican with odious views and a polka dot bowtie.
From Salon ● Feb. 2, 2026
The saltiest language — some of it referring to Heard — was silenced on Court TV, which is broadcasting the trial live.
From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 21, 2022
With that goal in mind, Pugh, Manda and Andrea Gibbs, the local agriculture agent for North Carolina Cooperative Extension, convened at the edge of Pugh’s saltiest field on a recent blustery afternoon.
From Washington Post ● Mar. 1, 2019
Where are the saltiest parts of the oceans?
From Textbooks ● Jan. 1, 2015
Following this exchange, attempts at salt making, especially on the Eastern Shore where the waters were saltiest, were renewed.
From The Bounty of the Chesapeake Fishing in Colonial Virginia by James Wharton
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
