Salt

adjective SALT sɔːlt

Also spelled saalt, salt up

Unlucky; down on your luck; jinxed. To be 'salt' is to be dogged by a run of misfortune in which nothing works out, and 'mi salt today' means I've had rotten luck today, everything going wrong. Something 'salt up' is thoroughly cursed and unlucky. The word names the whole grim feeling of a bad-luck spell that will not lift, close in spirit to 'bad luck wus dan obeah', and it is spoken with a weary, half-superstitious sense of being marked out for misfortune.

  • Mi salt bad today, everyting a go wrong.

    I'm really unlucky today, everything's going wrong.

  • Him salt up, cyaa win nutten.

    He's jinxed, can't win anything.

  • Since mawnin mi luck salt.

    Since morning my luck has been rotten.

A figurative extension of 'salt' (as in salted earth / spoiled), used in Jamaica and the wider Caribbean to mean unlucky or jinxed.

Means unlucky/jinxed, not the seasoning here. Compare 'bad luck wus dan obeah'.