If you’re making a salary, be grateful that it’s paid out in dollars and not salt. In antiquity, salt was a valuable commodity, and the term salary comes from the Latin salarium, the portions of salt paid to Roman soldiers. This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of “Etymology of Salary”
Speaking of spices, there’s one place where salt is in our language that people might not be aware of.
That’s in the word salary.
Oh, yes. The Romans paid their soldiers in salt?
They did back in the day because it was a preservative.
It was really handy and easy to dole out, right?
So the Latin salarium, which means the soldier’s portion of salt, gave us the word salary.
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