salt pan, noun phrase

Origin:
South African Dutch, Afrikaans, EnglishShow more Calque formed on South African Dutch zoutpan (later Afrikaans soutpan), zout salt + pan, see pan. Used also in general English, primarily of man-made salt-works.
A salt lake; a natural depression in which a salt deposit is left after rain water has evaporated. In both senses also called pan.
1786 G. Forster tr. of A. Sparrman’s Voy. to Cape of G.H. II. 14About a mile and a half from the river, we met with the principal Zout-pan, or Salt-pan. By this name those places are distinguished, where there is a quantity of culinary salt produced.
1796 C.R. Hopson tr. of C.P. Thunberg’s Trav. II. 6The name of Salt-pans is given, in this country, to large collections of salt water.
1810 G. Barrington Acct of Voy. 239It was one of those salt-water lakes which abound in Southern Africa, where they are called salt pans by the Colonists.
a1823 J. Ewart Jrnl (1970) 71These salt pans..are merely pools of water..which imbibing a portion of the saline matter with which the ground is strongly impregnated, deposit during the summer months when the water evaporates, a considerable quantity of fine white salt.
1835 A.G. Bain in A. Steedman Wanderings II. 250A periodical lake, having all the appearance of a salt-pan, but almost always without water.
1867 Blue Bk for Col. 1866 FF12There are two salt pans, from which salt is procured in large quantities.
1890 F. Young Winter Tour in S. Afr. 67I walked to see those wonderful ‘Salt Pans’.
1890 F. Young Winter Tour in S. Afr. 68The salt and soda brine is perpetually oosing [sic] from the bottom, and is continually being scraped up with a sort of wooden scraper into heaps, where..it becomes crystallised...These Salt Pans are the property of the Transvaal Government.
1936 R.J.M. Goold-Adams S. Afr. To-Day & To-Morrow 28East and west from the moisture laden kloofs of Natal to the dried up salt-pans and the withered bush of the Kalahari.
1958 A. Jackson Trader on Veld 26The brakish nature of the water..turned large dams into veritable saltpans.
1991 O. Oberholzer in Time 29 July 28 (advt)I..saw what I’d have to go through; the mountains of Lesotho, Zimbabwe, Caprivi, the Skeleton Coast, the Namib desert, and a whole lot of swamps, rivers and salt pans in between.
A salt lake; a natural depression in which a salt deposit is left after rain water has evaporated. In both senses also called pan.
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salted, participial adjectivepart. adj.saltriem, nounn.
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