salary
Definitions
Accounting
- noun a regular payment for work done, made to an employee usually as a cheque at the end of each month
- noun the amount paid to an employee, shown as a monthly, quarterly or yearly total
Economics
- noun a payment for work made to an employee with a contract of employment, usually made monthly and paid directly into the employee’s bank account or by cheque
Information & Library Science
- noun money that is paid, usually monthly, to somebody for their job
Law
- noun payment for work made to an employee with a contract of employment, especially in a professional or office job
Travel
- noun payment for work, made to an employee with a contract of employment, usually in the form of a monthly cheque
Origin & History of “salary”
Salary goes back to a Latin word that originally denoted an ‘allowance given to Roman soldiers for buying salt’ (salt being in former times a valued commodity, over which wars were fought, rather than taken for granted as it is today). This was salārium, a derivative of sāl ‘salt’. It soon broadened out to mean ‘fixed periodic payment for work done’, and passed in this sense via Anglo-Norman salarie into English.
