Trade, money & lettersMyths & disputes

salary

Latin salārium is built on sal 'salt', but nobody knows exactly why a word meaning 'to do with salt' came to mean an official's pay. It reached English through Anglo-Norman, spread through the Romance languages, and in 1920s Japan gave the wage-earner his name: the sararīman.

Weakest linkCertain

The story you may have heard

Roman soldiers were paid in salt, so their pay was called salārium. No ancient source says soldiers were paid in salt; the link between salt and the word is real, but the reason for it is unknown.

The road to English

From Latin to Old French, French, Romanian

From Latin to Italian

From Latin to Spanish

From Latin to Portuguese

From English to Japanese, Korean

70 CELatin

Hops are evenly spaced; labels show the year each form is first attested.

The road to English

From English to Japanese, Korean

Export “salary”

Embed “salary”

Save “salary”

Export “salary”

Embed “salary”

Save “salary”