salt the mine

English

Verb

salt the mine (third-person singular simple present salts the mine, present participle salting the mine, simple past and past participle salted the mine)

Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see salt,‎ the,‎ mine.
- 1989, John Burke, The Legend of Baby Doe: The Life and Times of the Silver Queen of the West, U of Nebraska Press, →ISBN, page 53:
  He then discovered that Lovell had salted the mine with ore from the Little Pittsburgh.
- 2000, Robert Greene, The 48 Laws of Power, Penguin Books, page 159:
  They then salted the “mine” with these gems, which the first expert dug up and brought to San Francisco.
- 2014, Harriet Hudson, The Wooing of Katie May, Hachette UK, →ISBN:
  Smith had merely dug a shaft, salted the mine with a good grade ore, in order to lure Jeremiah into purchasing.
- 2010, Michael Stanley, A Carrion Death, Hachette UK, →ISBN:
  "Ferraz then salted the mine with the quality diamonds from Angola," Kubu continued, "making it look as though De Beers had made a mistake."
(by extension) To set up a confidence trick; to plant false evidence of the value of something.
- 1954, P.G. Wodehouse, Bertie Wooster Sees It Through, Simon and Schuster, →ISBN, page 86:
  "Yes. I thought it would be a shrewd move to salt the mine." I didn't get this. She seemed to me an aunt who was talking in riddles.
- 2005, Paul Lindsay, The Big Scam: A Novel of the FBI, Simon and Schuster, →ISBN, page 275:
  “Salting the mine. We'll salt the mine.” Egan still didn't seem to understand. “You college boys, all that training and you can't see the nose on your face. We'll plant a body.”
- 2006, Steven T. Katz, Alan Rosen, Elie Wiesel, Obliged by Memory: Literature, Religion, Ethics, Syracuse University Press, →ISBN, page 64:
  Historians are duty bound never to salt the mine of history by the creation of ersatz facts introduced to fulfill their preconceived ideas.
- 2007, Ira Nottonson, Forming a Partnership : And Making It Work, Entrepreneur Press, →ISBN, page 4:
  His rationale was the same: these were amenities that a salesperson needed to salt the mine and make the right impression on customers.