to salt away
1
6.7
- phrasal verb
- /sɔlt əˈweɪ/
- Informal
:
ahorrar
- Not one cent of the billions allegedly stolen and salted away by the Marcos family has been recovered by the Philippine government.
- salt away money
I didn't discover it, but I've salted away so much stuff because I'm kind of a squirrel that way, you know, jokes and ideas and things.
- I didn't discover it, but I've salted away so much stuff because I'm kind of a squirrel that way, you know, jokes and ideas and things.
Examples
-
China has salted away 25% of its foreign reserves in Treasury paper, which it absolutely knows will be clobbered when the inflation driven by the dirty socialist spending hits.
Blog text (17) -
As the government rolls out increasingly shocking deficits, we react by salting away more money against the possibility of dark days.
Blog text (9) -
I stuffed into her purse the passbook to my bank account, in which I had salted away a fair sum of money since I earned well and spent little.
Fiction book (2001) -
- Surely, after having successfully managed to pad the household accounts to the tune of 35,000 tax-free dollars per year, for the past five years you must have salted something away.
-
I didn't discover it, but I've salted away so much stuff because I'm kind of a squirrel that way, you know, jokes and ideas and things.
-
I decided to salt away part of my salary each month for a future vacation.
-
She has managed to salt away enough money to buy her dream house one day.
-
To prepare for retirement, it's wise to salt away some of your earnings every year.
Synonyms
∞
1.0
Keep something for use later
463
1.0
To put something away to use later
144
5.1
To hide money or things in a secret place for later
87
2.6
To put money aside little by little for something you want
45
4.8
To collect and keep large amounts of food or other things for future use
26
2.1
Keep or save something for future use
23
3.0
Keep something to use at a later time
13
4.9
Put something in a hidden place to use later
4
5.3
To save money or things over time, often secretly
3
2.6
To put something in a safe place to use later
2
4.0
To get and keep extra supplies for use later
1
3.5
Save money for future use
1
3.9
To put things in a safe place for later use
1
4.7
To save money or keep goods for later
Put money or things aside in a safe place to use later
Antonyms
How Hidden
Surface Forms
Morphology
salt + away
The sense 'to save or store (money) for later' is a metaphorical extension from 'salt' (preserve or cure with salt) combined with 'away' (put aside), so a learner who knows both constituents can often infer the general idea of putting something aside for future use. However, the preservation-to-saving metaphor and nuances like secrecy or gradual accumulation are not fully predictable from the parts alone, so the expression is partially but not fully transparent.
Etymology
Salt away comes from the old way of using salt to preserve food and putting it away for later. When people salted meat or fish to keep it safe, the image became the phrase's meaning, so now it means 'to save or hide something, often quietly, for future use'.