Meaning & use
remuneration
Last updated
Meanings
noununcountablebusiness
The money or benefits a person receives in return for doing a job or providing a service.
Grammar: Usually uncountable, followed by for: remuneration for the work; a remuneration package is also common.
Patterns
- remuneration for something
- remuneration of someone
The job offers generous remuneration, including bonuses and a pension.
She received no remuneration for the extra hours she worked.
The committee reviewed executive remuneration at the annual meeting.
nouncountable or uncountablelegal
Any payment or reward given to repay someone for effort, help, or a loss.
Grammar: Uncountable in most uses; countable only in rare, very formal writing.
Patterns
- remuneration for something
- in remuneration for something
He asked for no remuneration for the advice he gave the charity.
The settlement included remuneration for the lost wages.
In remuneration for their loyalty, the staff received an extra week of leave.
Common combinations
- remuneration package
- The remuneration package includes salary, bonus, and health cover.
- executive remuneration
- Shareholders voted against high executive remuneration.
- adequate remuneration
- Nurses argued for adequate remuneration given their workload.
- remuneration for
- There is no remuneration for jury service beyond expenses.
- remuneration committee
- The remuneration committee set the director's pay.
- annual remuneration
- His annual remuneration rose by five percent.
Synonyms and how they differ
- pay
- Pay is the everyday word for money earned and fits ordinary conversation, whereas remuneration sounds formal and bureaucratic.
- salary
- Salary means a fixed regular payment, while remuneration also covers bonuses, benefits, and other forms of reward.
- compensation
- Compensation in business language often means pay plus benefits, but it can also mean repayment for harm, which remuneration rarely does.
- earnings
- Earnings is the amount received overall and may include income from many sources, while remuneration refers specifically to payment for a job.
Opposites
Word family
- remunerate verb
- to pay someone for work or a service
- remunerative adjective
- bringing in good payment or profit
- unremunerated adjective
- not paid
- remunerator noun
- a person or body who pays someone, a rare term
Commonly confused: remuneration or renumeration?
remuneration vs renumeration
This is a frequent misspelling, probably influenced by numbers; the correct spelling is remuneration, with re-mu-ne.
Practice
The directors' ___ was published in the annual report, including salary, bonuses, and pension.
Choose one answer.
Remuneration is the formal word for the total payment someone receives for their work. Reputation, reservation, and reluctance are real nouns but have nothing to do with pay.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “remuneration”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.