"above the salt" meaning in English

See above the salt in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Prepositional phrase

Audio: en-au-above the salt.ogg [Australia]
Etymology: In medieval times, salt (a valuable seasoning) was placed in the middle of a dining table and the lord and his family were seated "above the salt" and other guests or servants below. Head templates: {{head|en|prepositional phrase|head=}} above the salt, {{en-prep phrase}} above the salt
  1. (idiomatic) Of high standing or honor. Tags: idiomatic
    Sense id: en-above_the_salt-en-prep_phrase-BELnac15 Categories (other): English entries with incorrect language header

Download JSON data for above the salt meaning in English (1.2kB)

{
  "antonyms": [
    {
      "word": "below the salt"
    }
  ],
  "etymology_text": "In medieval times, salt (a valuable seasoning) was placed in the middle of a dining table and the lord and his family were seated \"above the salt\" and other guests or servants below.",
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "prepositional phrase",
        "head": ""
      },
      "expansion": "above the salt",
      "name": "head"
    },
    {
      "args": {},
      "expansion": "above the salt",
      "name": "en-prep phrase"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "prep_phrase",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [
            "Entries with incorrect language header",
            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "source": "w"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "Of high standing or honor."
      ],
      "id": "en-above_the_salt-en-prep_phrase-BELnac15",
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(idiomatic) Of high standing or honor."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "idiomatic"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "audio": "en-au-above the salt.ogg",
      "mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/a/a8/En-au-above_the_salt.ogg/En-au-above_the_salt.ogg.mp3",
      "ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a8/En-au-above_the_salt.ogg",
      "tags": [
        "Australia"
      ],
      "text": "Audio (AU)"
    }
  ],
  "word": "above the salt"
}
{
  "antonyms": [
    {
      "word": "below the salt"
    }
  ],
  "etymology_text": "In medieval times, salt (a valuable seasoning) was placed in the middle of a dining table and the lord and his family were seated \"above the salt\" and other guests or servants below.",
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "prepositional phrase",
        "head": ""
      },
      "expansion": "above the salt",
      "name": "head"
    },
    {
      "args": {},
      "expansion": "above the salt",
      "name": "en-prep phrase"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "prep_phrase",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "English entries with incorrect language header",
        "English idioms",
        "English lemmas",
        "English multiword terms",
        "English prepositional phrases",
        "English terms with audio links"
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "Of high standing or honor."
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(idiomatic) Of high standing or honor."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "idiomatic"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "audio": "en-au-above the salt.ogg",
      "mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/a/a8/En-au-above_the_salt.ogg/En-au-above_the_salt.ogg.mp3",
      "ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a8/En-au-above_the_salt.ogg",
      "tags": [
        "Australia"
      ],
      "text": "Audio (AU)"
    }
  ],
  "word": "above the salt"
}

This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-05-06 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-05-02 using wiktextract (f4fd8c9 and c9440ce). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.

If you use this data in academic research, please cite Tatu Ylonen: Wiktextract: Wiktionary as Machine-Readable Structured Data, Proceedings of the 13th Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC), pp. 1317-1325, Marseille, 20-25 June 2022. Linking to the relevant page(s) under https://kaikki.org would also be greatly appreciated.