The Greek adjective analos (G358) means "without salt" or "having lost its saltiness." It appears once in the New Testament in Mark 9:50: "Salt is good, but if it loses its saltiness, how can you make it salty again?"
The word combines the negative prefix an- with halas (G251, salt), yielding "saltless" or "insipid."
Jesus' teaching on salt in Mark 9:50 (paralleled in Matthew 5:13 and Luke 14:34) uses analos to describe a Christian who has lost their distinctive character and transformative power. In the ancient world, salt was indispensable for preservation, flavor, and covenant ratification — to become analos was to become useless for all these purposes.
The warning is sobering: religious profession without genuine transformation produces not neutral Christianity but something worse — saltlessness that cannot be re-salted. Jesus ends with "Have salt among yourselves, and be at peace with each other" (Mark 9:50). The connection is profound: people with godly character ("salt") create peaceable communities. Salt preserves, purifies, and creates covenant — so does genuine discipleship.