saltspoon

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English

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A saltspoon (length: 9.5 cm /3¾ in.)

Etymology

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From salt +‎ spoon.

Noun

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saltspoon (plural saltspoons)

  1. (historical) A small spoon used for serving or measuring salt, equivalent to ⅛ teaspoon.
    • 1798, Charlotte Turner Smith, The Young Philosopher, London: T. Cadell, Jun. & W. Davies, Volume 1, Chapter 3, pp. 55-56,[1]
      Her reasons [] for disliking paupers of every description were entirely on the surface; “she hated them,” she said, “for they were nasty dirty creatures; the fellows and wenches were all thieves; she once lost a salt spoon by one of them whom Master George thought proper to bring to her door for cold victuals []
    • 1870 April–September, Charles Dickens, chapter 22, in The Mystery of Edwin Drood, London: Chapman and Hall, [], published 1870, →OCLC:
      His gleaming little service of plate was so arranged upon his sideboard as that a slack salt-spoon would have instantly betrayed itself []
    • 1872, Charles Stuart Calverley, “The Palace”, in Fly Leaves[2], Cambridge: Deighton, Bell, page 15:
      Dashed the bold fork through pies of pork;
      O’er hard-boiled eggs the saltspoon shook;
    • 1909, Channing Arnold, Frederick J. Tabor Frost, chapter 20, in The American Egypt: A Record of Travel in Yucatan[3], London: Hutchinson, page 352:
      There is no such thing as a saltspoon in Yucatan. You are expected to shake the salt out or take it out with your fingers.

Translations

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