English · Idiom Historical

net worth your salt

Preserved but no longer current.

Both English Tiếng Việt

Meaning · English

Not worth your wages. The reference is to the salary (q.v.) composed of rations of salt and other necessaries served out by the Romans to their soldiers, etc.

Nghĩa · Tiếng Việt

không xứng đáng với tiền lương

Machine-translated — suggest a fix

Era: ca. 1898 (Victorian)

Sources & notes

Reproduced from Brewer’s Dictionary of Phrase and Fable (1898 edition, public domain; archive.org, retrieved 2026-07-31; OCR text, minor errors possible). Reflects the scholarship and attitudes of its era.

Topics: Food Historical slang (1800s)

Common questions

What does “net worth your salt” mean?

Not worth your wages. The reference is to the salary (q.v.) composed of rations of salt and other necessaries served out by the Romans to their soldiers, etc.

Is “net worth your salt” formal or informal?

No register label has been reviewed yet — treat it as neutral and check the usage notes above.

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