salary

noun

sal·​a·​ry ˈsal-rē 

ˈsa-lə-

plural salaries

: fixed compensation paid regularly for services

salaried

ˈsal-rēd 

ˈsa-lə-ˌrēd

adjective

Synonyms

• emolument
• hire
• packet [British]
• pay
• pay envelope
• paycheck
• payment
• stipend
• wage

Examples of salary in a Sentence

She was offered a salary of $50,000 a year.

Employees receive an annual increase in salary.

Recent Examples on the Web

The group's president David Ridenour has a base salary of roughly $358,000. —Ricardo Torres, Journal Sentinel, 19 Apr. 2024

For 2023, Zaslav had a base salary of $3 million, stock awards valued at $23.1 million, a cash bonus of $22 million and $1.6 million in other compensation (including $705,182 for personal security services and $767,908 for his personal use of the company’s private jet). —Todd Spangler, Variety, 19 Apr. 2024

Dalton Person, board president, said there will be no increase in Morawski's base salary, which this year is $253,839. —Nwa Democrat-Gazette, arkansasonline.com, 19 Apr. 2024

Felix claimed that Nike had been pressuring her to return to training as quickly as possible after her pregnancy and offered her a salary that was 70 percent less than her previous compensation. —Hannah Sacks, Peoplemag, 18 Apr. 2024

The proportion of available hybrid jobs with a salary of $100,000 or higher decreased by 40% between Q4 of 2023 and Q1 of this year, according to a new report from Ladders, a job search platform. —Emma Burleigh, Fortune, 17 Apr. 2024

Phoenix made a big splash in the offseason, trading for multi-time all-star Brad Beal for pennies on the dollar thanks to Beal’s exorbitant salary. —Jace Frederick, Twin Cities, 16 Apr. 2024

The Warriors will need to shed eight figures worth of salary to avoid catastrophic luxury tax costs. —Danny Emerman, The Mercury News, 16 Apr. 2024

New postings across the job market reaped salaries 3% higher than a year before, according to Adzuna data. —Isabella Ward, Fortune Europe, 8 Apr. 2024

Word History

Etymology

Middle English salarie, salaire "compensation, payment," borrowed from Anglo-French (also continental Old French), borrowed from Latin salārium "official pay given to the holder of a civil or military post," noun derivative from neuter of salārius "of or relating to salt," from sal-, sāl "salt" + -ārius -ary entry 2 — more at salt entry 1

Note: The notion that Latin salārium originally referred to money given to Roman soldiers to buy salt is a popular one, but it has no basis in ancient sources. It rests on the inference that salārium was originally short for an unattested phrase salārium argentum "salt money," which would have been parallel to the contextually better attested words calceārium "money for shoes" (from calceus "shoe") or vestiārium "allowance in money or kind to provide for clothing" (from vestis "clothes"). The inference can be found in Charlton Lewis and Charles Short's A Latin Dictionary (1879), many times reprinted, though it was copied from earlier dictionaries, as the Latin-German dictionaries of Wilhelm Freund (1840) and I. J. G. Scheller (1783) (Scheller, however, takes dōnum "gift, prize" to have been the understood word). Pliny the Elder has been cited as support for the soldier's pay explanation, though the text of his Historia naturalis refers only to some undefined role salt played in relation to honors in war, "from which the word salārium is derived" ("[sal] honoribus etiam militiaeque interponitur salariis inde dictis"; 31.89). As Pliny is extolling the virtues of salt in this chapter, it seems likely that if he knew of a better explanation for the word, he would have mentioned it. Clearly salt was somehow involved in the notion of official compensation in early imperial Rome, but to speculate further on its function is no more than guessing. (Compare "Salt and salary: were Roman soldiers paid in salt?," blog post by New Zealand classicist Peter Gainsford, Kiwi Hellenist, January 11, 2017, available online 5/26/22.)

First Known Use

13th century, in the meaning defined above

Phrases Containing salary

• salary/pay review
• starting salary

Kids Definition

salary

noun

sal·​a·​ry ˈsal-(ə-)rē 

plural salaries

: money paid at regular times for work or services : stipend

Etymology

Middle English salarie "money paid to a worker," from Latin salarium "salt money, pension, salary," derived from sal "salt"

Word Origin

The word salary is a loanword from Latin salarium, a derivative of sal, "salt," and perhaps originally short for salarium argentum, "salt money." According to a customary explanation, it was at one time money paid to Roman soldiers with which they were supposed to buy salt, but nothing in the known history of the word supports this. From the evidence of documents and inscriptions, the salarium was a fixed payment, introduced under the rule of Caesar Augustus, that was made to officials of a certain rank. The word was also applied to various other fees and payments to individuals by the Roman state or a community. Presumably salarium was a kind of euphemism, since the sums involved were much greater than would have been needed just to buy salt.

Legal Definition

salary

noun

sal·​a·​ry

plural salaries

: fixed compensation paid regularly for services

salaried adjective