Some salts have a property called "hygroscopy". This means that
they absorb water from the air in a preset ratio (like, 5 molecules
of water for every 2 units of the salt for example). They give this
water off when heated. Therefore, there are actually two forms of
the salt, they "hydrate" or "hydrous" form, which has the water,
and the "anhydrate" or "anhydrous form", which does not. These two
forms can have surprisingly different properties. Hydration is the
process of going from an anhydrate to a hydrate (the source of the
water doesn't matter, so don't say it's "absorbing water from the
air").