Salters

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A person or device that applies salt, often used in cooking or preservation processes
2. A container or shaker designed to dispense salt for seasoning food
3. The process of adding salt to enhance flavor or preserve foods, typically involving the use of a salting agent

Etymology: "Salters" is the plural of "salter," a person who salts, and the word is about as transparent as English gets: salt with the agent suffix "-er" added. The ending itself has a longer journey than the noun it sits on. It descends through Old French "-ier" from Latin "-arius," a suffix that marked a person connected with or occupied by a thing, and it arrived in English as "-ere" in Old English, later becoming "-er." The Latin pathway shows up in plenty of English words, which is why the suffix feels so ordinary. Its survival in "salter" rests on a simple, practical root: salt, a substance that people needed for preserving food and seasoning it, so the people who worked with it had reason to have a name of their own.

Synonyms: salt merchants