Salary, n.; pl. Salaries.
Etymology: [F. salarie, L. salarium, originally, salt money, the money given to the Roman soldiers for salt, which was a part of thir pay, fr. salarius belonging to salt, fr. sal salt. See Salt.]
The recompense or consideration paid, or stipulated to be paid, to a person at regular intervals for services; fixed wages, as by the year, quarter, or month; stipend; hire. This is hire and salary, not revenge. Shak.
Note: Recompense for services paid at, or reckoned by, short intervals, as a day or week, is usually called wages.
Syn. -- Stipend; pay; wages; hire; allowance.
2 other Webster entries under this spelling
Salary, a.
Saline [Obs.]
Salary v. t. [imp. & p. p. Salaried; p. pr. & vb. n. Salarying.]
To pay, or agree to pay, a salary to; to attach salary to; as, to salary a clerk; to salary a position.
Shades of meaning
Fernald has no entry of its own for salary; he lists it under pay.
Where he writes about it:
Recompense is a still wider and loftier word, with less suggestion of calculation and market value; there are services for which affection and gratitude are the sole and sufficient recompense; earnings, fees, hire, pay, salary, and wages are forms of compensation and may be included in compensation, remuneration, or recompense. — from pay
Salary is for literary or professional work, wages for handicraft or other comparatively inferior service; a salary is regarded as more permanent than wages; an editor receives a salary, a compositor receives wages. — from pay