Meaning & use
salary
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Meaning
nouncountable or uncountable
A fixed regular payment to an employee, usually set as an annual amount rather than by hours worked.
Grammar: Use uncountable for pay in general and countable for a particular amount: 'Her salary is rising' vs 'salaries are competitive.'
Patterns
- earn a salary
- annual salary
- salary of something
- salary range
Her salary is reviewed every April.
The job offers a salary of $65,000 a year.
Teachers complained that salaries had not kept up with prices.
Word forms
| plural | salaries |
|---|
Common combinations
- earn a salary
- She earns a salary that supports her whole family.
- annual salary
- The annual salary is paid in twelve monthly parts.
- salary increase
- Workers accepted a small salary increase after the talks.
- high salary
- A high salary is not the only reason people stay in a job.
- salary negotiation
- He prepared carefully for the salary negotiation.
Synonyms and how they differ
- wage
- A wage is usually paid by the hour, week, or piece of work, while a salary is a fixed yearly amount.
- pay
- Pay is the general word for money received for work; salary is more formal and usually implies professional or office work.
- income
- Income means all money received, including rent, investments, or benefits, not only earnings from a job.
Opposites
Word family
- salaried adjective
- Receiving a salary rather than hourly pay: a salaried employee.
Commonly confused: salary or wage?
salary vs wage
Both mean work payment, but wage usually varies with time or output, while salary is fixed, often yearly.
Practice
Choose the best sentence.
Choose one answer.
A fixed yearly payment fits 'salary'; 'wage by the hour' contradicts the usual meaning, and 'many salaries' is unnatural for one job.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “salary”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.