worth one's salt
7
8.1
- idiom
- Informal
:
merecer su salario
- A good teacher worth their salt knows how to engage their students effectively.
- worth their salt knows
- man worth his salt
- writer worth his salt
Examples
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Any educator worth his salt should be able to instruct in basic math, science, history, and language.
Blog text (13) -
How can any economist worth his salt overlook that direct stimulus in favor of a paean to New York's population density?
Blog text (2) -
Truly, any man worth his salt would want you.
-
Every criminal worth his salt knows that he has the right to an attorney.
Blog text (5) -
So he did what any hacker worth his salt would do.
Blog text (2) -
Any publisher worth his salt would have said, "Publishers support free speech, especially those of their authors."
Blog text (20) -
If your lawyer here is worth his salt, you'll be out of here sometime tomorrow if you can post bond, okay?
-
Any chef worth his salt would cringe at the way he went about cleaning.
Blog text (30) -
Garth Sloane says if an actress can't cry on cue she's not worth her salt.
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Any employee worth their salt deserves fair compensation for their hard work.
Synonyms
530
2.8
Deserving respect because of good or honest qualities
526
2.5
Very useful and important, for example advice or skills
Good at what they do so people respect and trust them
Antonyms
How Competent
129
4.1
- Informal
7
8.1
172
3.5
114
3.6
234
2.7
Surface Forms
Morphology
worth + one's + salt
The constituent 'worth' clearly signals value, so a learner may infer the expression relates to being valuable or deserving; however, the role of 'salt' (historically linked to pay/salary) is culturally and historically specific and not obvious from the literal word. Because the precise sense of deserving pay/status or competence depends on idiomatic/historical knowledge rather than straightforward composition, the item is partially but not fully predictable.
Etymology
The idiom worth one's salt comes from a time long ago when salt was very valuable and was used to pay workers or soldiers. So if someone was 'worth their pay' it meant they had earned that salt, and today the phrase means someone is 'deserving of their pay or respect'.