Divers are always covered in a lot of salt (7)
I believe the answer is:
several
'divers' is the definition.
(thesaurus)
'always covered in a lot of salt' is the wordplay.
'always' becomes 'ever' ('ever' can be a synonym of 'always').
'covered in' indicates putting letters inside.
'a lot of' means to remove the last letter (most of the word but not all of it).
'salt' with its final letter taken off is 'sal'.
'ever' placed within 'sal' is 'SEVERAL'.
'are' is the link.
(Other definitions for several that I've seen before include "Various, sundry" , "Indefinite number more than two or three, but not many" , "A good few" , "Reveals (anag.)" , "More than one or two" .)