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Origin and history of salary

salary(n.)

late 13c., salarie, "compensation, payment," whether periodical, for regular service or for a specific service; from Anglo-French salarie, Old French salaire "wages, pay, reward," from Latin salarium "an allowance, a stipend, a pension," said to be originally "salt-money, soldier's allowance for the purchase of salt" [Lewis & Short] noun use of neuter of adjective salarius "of or pertaining to salt; yearly revenue from the sale of salt;" as a noun, "a dealer in salt fish," from sal (genitive salis) "salt" (from PIE root *sal- "salt"). Compare Greek sitērion "pay," etymologically "provision for grain," from sitos "wheat, corn."

Over time by 19c. salary became restricted to "recompense stipulated to be paid a person periodically for services," usually a fixed sum. The Via Salaria was so called because the Sabines used it to fetch sea-salt near the Porta Collina. Japanese sarariman "male salaried worker," literally "salary-man," is from English.

also from late 13c.

salary(v.)

"to pay a regular salary to," late 15c. (Caxton), from salary (n.). Related: Salaried "in receipt of a fixed salary" (c. 1600), which as an adjective in reference to positions originally was contrasted with honorary ("without pay"); from 20c. with hourly ("paid by the hour").

also from late 15c.

Entries linking to salary

wage(n.)

c. 1300, "a payment for services rendered, reward, just deserts;" mid-14c., "salary paid to a provider of service," from Anglo-French and Old North French wage (Old French gage) "pledge, pay, reward," from Frankish *wadja- or another Germanic source (compare Old English wedd "pledge, agreement, covenant," Gothic wadi "pledge"), from Proto-Germanic *wadi- (see wed (v.)). A doublet of gage (n.). Spanish gage, Italian gaggio also are from Germanic.

Also from mid-14c., "a pledge, guarantee, surety" (usually in plural), and (c. 1400) "a promise or pledge to meet in battle." The "payment for service" sense by late 14c. extended to allotments of money paid at regular intervals for continuous or repeated service. The Old English word was lean, related to loan and representing the usual Germanic word (Gothic laun, Dutch loon, German Lohn).

Traditionally in English wages were payment for manual or mechanical labor and somewhat distinguished from salary or fee. Modern French cognate gages (plural) means "wages of a domestic," one of a range of French "pay" words distinguished by class, such as traitement (university professor), paye, salaire (workman), solde (soldier), récompense, prix.

Wage-earner "one who receives stated wages for labor" is attested from 1871.

*sal-

Proto-Indo-European root meaning "salt."

It might form all or part of: hali-; halide; halieutic; halite; halo-; halogen; sal; salad; salami; salary; saline; salmagundi; salsa; salsify; salt; salt-cellar; saltpeter; sauce; sausage; silt; souse.

It might also be the source of: Greek hals "salt, sea;" Latin sal, Old Church Slavonic soli, Old Irish salann, Welsh halen, Old English sealt, German Salz "salt."

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