salariu

Forms

salariu n (plural salarii)^[1] MDA2 records the popular variant salar, the old salarie and salarium, and the regional sălariu and șălărie.^[2] The plural has varied: Pontbriant gives salariuri, Barcianu salarie; today it is salarii.^[3][4][5]

Etymology

It is borrowed from French salaire, borrowed from Latin salārium, a double source that DEX, MDA2, DLR and MDN name.^[5][2][6][7] DN gives French as the source with the Latin as its model, and Wiktionary adds Italian salario.^[8][1]

The Latin word was a regular official payment to the holder of a civil or military post.^[9] It is the noun of salārius (“of salt”), from sal (“salt”).^[9][1] Graur explains it as the money Roman soldiers got to buy salt, and lists it with sare “salt”, the Romanian word inherited from the same Latin noun.^[10]

Earliest recorded meaning

MDA2 cites the Buda reprint of Petru Maior's Istoria pentru începutul românilor în Dachia (1834), where the Latin form salarium is used of the paid teaching posts in towns and villages.^[2][6]

Semantic evolution

Early writers kept the Latin form and explained it: Petrovici wrote salariumul and added simbria, the native word for wages.^[6] The form salariu is in Pontbriant's dictionary of 1862, and Costinescu still marked it as foreign in 1870.^[3][11]

In the socialist period the DLR defined it in the terms of the planned economy, as the share of the national income paid to workers by the amount and quality of their work.^[6] The current DEX definition is the legal one: the pay under an individual labour contract, with its allowances and bonuses.^[5]

Timeline

• 1834 – salarium in Petru Maior's Istoria.^[2][6]
• 1862 – salariu, plural salariuri, in Pontbriant's dictionary.^[3]
• 1870 – Costinescu labels it a foreign word.^[11]
• 1886 – plural salarie in Barcianu.^[4]

Meanings

Noun

1. A salary, wages: the pay an employee receives for work under a labour contract, including base pay, allowances and bonuses; a synonym of leafă.^[5][1]

Related words

• leafă
• simbrie
• sare

Usage notes

The DLR lists the economic phrases salariu nominal and salariu real.^[6] Older synonyms are simbrie (popular) and leafă.^[2]

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 2, 747
3. ^ a b c Pontbriant, Raoul de (1862), Dictiunaru romano-francesu, Bucuresci: A. Ulrich / Göttingen: Dieterich, p. 645
4. ^ a b Barcianu, Sava Popovici (1886), Dicționar român-germân și germân-român, revised by D. P. Barcianu, part I: român-germân, Sibiu: Institut tipografic, p. 559
5. ^ a b c d DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 972
6. ^ a b c d e f Academia Română (1965–2010), Dicționarul limbii române (DLR), serie nouă, tom I–XIX, București: Editura Academiei Române, p. s.v. salariu
7. ^ Marcu, Florin (2000), Marele dicționar de neologisme, București: Saeculum Vizual, p. s.v. salariu
8. ^ Marcu, Florin; Maneca, Constant (1986), Dicționar de neologisme, 3rd ed., București: Editura Academiei Republicii Socialiste România, p. s.v. salariu
9. ^ a b Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
10. ^ Graur, Alexandru (1980), Cuvinte înrudite, București: Editura Științifică și Enciclopedică, p. no. 210
11. ^ a b Costinescu, Ion (1870), Vocabularu romano-francesu, 2 vols., Bucuresci, p. 2, 460