salty

Salty means bitter, annoyed or resentful, usually over something minor. If someone is salty, they’re visibly upset about losing, being left out or being proven wrong.

What does salty mean?

Being salty is a petty kind of irritation. A friend who loses a game and sulks is salty. So is someone who’s still bitter that they weren’t invited to a party, or who replies with sarcasm after being corrected. It’s often used to tease: “Why are you so salty?”

How to use salty

• “He’s still salty that I beat him at Mario Kart.”
• “Don’t be salty, you’ll win next time.”
• “She got salty when I said I liked the other band better.”
• “The comments are really salty today.”

Salty vs. pressed

Salty means bitter or resentful after something happened. “Pressed” means overly bothered or worked up about something. You can be salty that you lost, and pressed about a rude comment.

Where salty comes from

Dictionary.com says this sense of salty originates in and was popularized by Black English. It’s now especially common in gaming and on social media, where “salt” is also used as a noun for bitterness: “the salt in this chat is unreal.”

Related terms

• Malding: mad and balding, extremely frustrated.
• Rage quit: quitting a game in anger.
• L: a loss.
• Copium: coping through denial.

See more terms like this in our Gen Z slang dictionary.