What does it mean when you spill salt?
In European folk custom, spilling salt is bad luck, and the usual remedy is to throw a pinch over your left shoulder. The belief comes from how valuable salt used to be, and the Hebrew Bible already treats salt as a sign of a lasting promise.
Last reviewed October 20, 2026
What each tradition says
Continental Europe, recorded from the medieval period onward
European folk custom
Spilled salt is among the best-known unlucky signs in Europe. The usual remedy is to throw a pinch of the spilled salt over your left shoulder. Salt was costly and necessary, and it is one of the things a household offers a guest, with bread. Leonardo da Vinci's Last Supper, which shows a spilled salt cellar near Judas, is often given as the origin. The belief is older than the painting, so the painting is better read as a famous example.
Jewish scripture, the Torah, Prophets, and Writings, compiled in ancient Israel across the first millennium BCE
The Hebrew Bible
The Hebrew Bible calls for salt with every offering (Leviticus 2:13) and uses the phrase covenant of salt for a lasting agreement (Numbers 18:19). Salt here stands for something that does not spoil, a promise that holds. Spilling it is not discussed.
How to weigh it
Spilled salt is a good example of an omen that grew out of something practical. Wasting a costly, necessary thing is a small loss, and a custom grew up around it. Like most folk omens, it comes in several versions depending on whose family you ask.