Salary

We all know salary; a salary is the "Fixed compensation for services, paid to a person on a regular basis." Salary is another word for wages. The two words are almost direct synonyms, and the fact that English has both words is an artifact of the way Modern English was formed—wages was the word used for a couple of hundred years until the late fourteenth century. But today I'm interested in salary. English borrowed salary, or rather salerie, from the Anglo-Normans who came to conquer England in 1066; the Anglo-Normans borrowed salerie from Latin salrium, a word the Romans used to refer to the money given to Roman soldiers specifically to buy salt. Latin salrium is based on the neuter form of salrius, "pertaining to salt," itself derived from the word for salt, sal. The Proto Indo-European root, *sal-gives us a host of words that have to do with the preservative and flavoring nature of salt; words like salad, salsa, sausage— even sauce, are all descended from *sal-.

Don't believe anyone who tells you salary refers to paying Roman soldiers directly with salt; that's a myth. The reason they were given funds specifically to buy salt was that the Roman empire very strictly controlled salt production because it was crucial for preserving food; think about all the expressions having to do with salt even now. Salt was an enormously important commodity in the ancient world; you might remember Ezra 4:14, which in the King James version of the Bible reads "Now because we have maintenance from the king's palace, and it was not meet for us to see the king's dishonour, therefore have we sent and certified the king." In a more literal translation, like the American Standard we have "Now because we eat the salt of the palace, and it is not meet for us to see the king's dishonor, therefore have we sent and certified the king." The word salt in the King James translation is, not unreasonably, translated as maintenance; it's very much along the lines of a salary.