Sout

Part of speech: verb

Definitions

1. The Afrikaans word for common table salt, the white crystalline seasoning used to flavour and preserve food
2. An Afrikaans term meaning the mineral sodium chloride, widely used in cooking and in preserving meat and fish
3. Afrikaans for the crystalline seasoning that flavours food, sometimes referred to in South African cooking and speech

Etymology: "Sout" is an obsolete spelling of "soot," the black powder left behind when wood, coal or oil burns. The spelling is a relic of the Middle English period, when "soot," "soote," "sote" and "sot" all circulated side by side. Behind them lies the Old English "sōt," which goes back to a Proto-Germanic word meaning the same thing. That Germanic ancestor is traced to an Indo-European root meaning "to sit," a connection that is hard to see at first. The likely link is that soot settles and sits on surfaces, so the sense of settling gave rise to the name for the dark deposit. Sister words appear across the northern languages: Dutch "zoet," Swedish "sot," Danish "sod" and Icelandic "sót" all mean soot, as do Old Irish "suide" and several Slavic and Baltic forms.