Take it with a grain of salt
Suggest a CorrectionMeaning
Treat a statement cautiously rather than accepting it as wholly accurate, complete or sincere. 'A grain of salt' is the usual North American wording; British English more often uses 'a pinch of salt.'
Origin
The expression translates Latin cum grano salis. Figurative English evidence appears in the 17th century: Thomas Morton used the Latin with an English explanation in 1609, Richard Carpenter paired it with 'with a grain of salt' in 1641, and John Trapp used the English wording independently in 1647. Pliny the Elder's Natural History contains an antidote recipe to which a literal grain of salt is added, and that passage may have influenced the expression, but it does not itself use cum grano salis to mean sceptically. Latin sal could also mean wit or good judgement, so the precise path to the modern idiom remains uncertain. 'Pinch' is the later conventional British quantity word, not a separate ancient expression.
Research Sources
Variants
- With a grain of salt
- Take something with a grain of salt
- Take it with a pinch of salt
- With a pinch of salt
- Take something with a pinch of salt
Usage Examples
- Take the anonymous sales forecast with a grain of salt until the underlying figures are published.
- British readers may take the same claim with a pinch of salt rather than a grain.
- Because the account was written fifty years later, the curator treated its finer details with a grain of salt.