Where does “salary” come from?

Salary comes from Middle English salarie, from Anglo-Norman salarie, from Old French salaire, from Latin salarium meaning an allowance of salt or salt money, derived from sal meaning salt with the suffix -arius, ultimately from Proto-Indo-European seh₂l- meaning salt.

salary (English): A fixed amount of money paid to a worker, usually...

Definitions

  1. A fixed amount of money paid to a worker, usually...

Ancestry of “salary”, step by step

StepLanguageWordMeaning
1Middle Englishsalarie—
2Anglo-NormansalarieAlternative form of salaire
3Old Frenchsalairesalary
4Latinsalāriuma salary, stipend, allowance, pension
5Latinsālsalt
6Proto-Italicsālssalt
7Proto-Indo-European*sḗh₂lsalt

Words derived from “salary”

Every word from Proto-Indo-European *sḗh₂l →Every word from Proto-Italic sāls →Every word from Latin sāl →