remunerate

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin remūnerāt-, the past participial stem of remūneror (“to repay, recompense, reward”), later remūnerō,^[2][3][4][5] from re- (“back”)^[6][7] and mūneror (“to give”), also mūnerō,^[3][4][6] from mūnus (“gift, office, duty”).^[6][7][3] The American Heritage Dictionary traces the noun to Proto-Indo-European *mei-.^[8] The Oxford Dictionary of English takes the prefix as intensive rather than as "back".^[9] Barnhart prefers a back-formation from remuneration, recorded about 1400, perhaps influenced by the Latin participle,^[7] and Etymonline allows either origin.^[6] The OED compares Middle French remunerer, Spanish remunerar, Portuguese remunerar and Italian rimunerare.^[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

To repay or reward a service or kindness: 1523, in a letter of T. Cromwell.^[2][10][7] Dictionary.com gives 1515–25.^[11]

Semantic evolution

At first the verb took as its object the service being repaid;^[2] from 1542, in A. Borde, it also took the person rewarded.^[2] The Shorter Oxford dates this second use to the late 16th century,^[5] and Etymonline dates the sense "reward or pay for services" by the 1580s.^[6] Johnson (1755) defined it broadly as to reward, repay, requite and recompense, quoting Titus Andronicus and Bacon.^[12] The meaning has since narrowed towards money: the OED notes that both uses now usually mean giving payment for work done or services rendered.^[2] From 1793 a reflexive use implied seeking financial advantage rather than receiving a deserved reward.^[2] Things as well as people could recompense: a thing could remunerate a labour from 1735,^[2] and a person from 1820.^[2] Etymonline dates this use of things by 1849,^[6] and says that the verb is usually taken in a good sense.^[6] A use meaning to give something as compensation is recorded in Locrine (1595), and is rare and obsolete.^[2]

Timeline

• 1523 – to repay or reward a service.^[2][10][7]
• 1542 – to reward a person, now to pay a person for work.^[2]
• 1595 – to give as compensation (obsolete).^[2]
• 1735 – of a thing, to provide recompense for a labour or service.^[2]
• 1793 – reflexive, implying the pursuit of financial advantage.^[2]
• 1820 – of a thing, to compensate a person.^[2][6]

Meanings

Verb

1. To pay a person for work, services or trouble: The agency remunerates its translators by the page.^[13][10][2]
2. To pay an equivalent for a service, loss or expense; to recompense or reward it.^[10][2]
3. Of a thing: to provide recompense for a labour, or to compensate a person.^[2]

Word family

• remunerability
• remunerable
• remunerator
• remuneratory
• remunerably
• remunerative
• unremunerated

Related words

• munificent
• remuneration
• municipal

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
4. ^ a b Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
5. ^ a b Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ a b c d e f g h Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
7. ^ a b c d e Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
8. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
9. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
10. ^ a b c d Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
11. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
12. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
13. ^ Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins