salary
sal·a·ry/ˈsæləɹi/noun, verb
salary is spelled S-A-L-A-R-Y, 3 syllables: sal·a·ry. The wrong spelling people search most is salery: about 120 Bing searches a month in the United States (September 2025 to August 2026), about 1 in 55 of all searches for the word. Salary is a noun meaning “A fixed amount of money paid to a worker, usually calculated on a monthly or annual basis, not hourly, as…”. The plural of salary is salaries.
How many letters and syllables are in salary?
| Letters | 6: S-A-L-A-R-Y |
|---|---|
| Syllables | 3: sal·a·ry |
| In writing | 23 times per million words; the 3,875th most frequent word form |
| Wrong spellings searched | 1; the most searched, salery, about 120 Bing searches a month (all of them) |
| Pairs people search | |
| Rhymes with |
Sources: letters and syllables from the English Wiktionary's hyphenation or pronunciation; written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media); Bing searches in the United States: the average month from September 2025 to August 2026 (Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, read September 30, 2026); rhymes and same-letter words are computed by PlainSpell from its own word list.
How do you spell salary?
Salary is spelled S-A-L-A-R-Y. One wrong spelling is searched or written often enough to measure; together they are about 1 in 55 of the searches for salary in either form.
Bing searches in the United States: the average month from September 2025 to August 2026 (Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, read September 30, 2026). Wrong spellings are taken from Wiktionary entries tagged "misspelling" and its obsolete or nonstandard forms, Wikipedia's Lists of common misspellings and the codespell dictionary, then measured. The proofreader's marks show the change that corrects each one.
How common is salary?
Salary appears 23 times per million words in written English, the 3,875th most frequent word form in the list.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
How do you pronounce salary?
- US /ˈsæləɹi/
- /ˈsaləɾe/
- /-ɾɪ/
Salary has 3 syllables, split sal·a·ry in writing.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: En-us-salary.ogg, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
Words people confuse with salary
Word pairs people search, with the monthly searches for “a vs b” (G: Google, B: Bing, United States).
Sources: Google and Bing searches (September 2025 to August 2026, through DataForSEO); English Wiktionary (homophones, alternative spellings).
What rhymes with salary?
3 words on PlainSpell end in the same sounds as salary from its last stressed vowel (/æləɹi/):
Computed by PlainSpell from the pronunciations in the English Wiktionary (dump of September 2, 2026): a rhyme shares every sound from the last stressed vowel to the end; ordered by written frequency (wordfreq 3.1).
Forms of salary
- salaries plural, present, singular, he/she/it
- salarying participle, present
- salaried participle, past
- more salary comparative
- most salary superlative
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
What does salary mean?
The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).
noun
- 1
A fixed amount of money paid to a worker, usually calculated on a monthly or annual basis, not hourly, as wages. Implies a degree of professionalism and/or autonomy.
Andrew Houſtoun and Adam Muſhet, being Tackſmen of the Excize, did Imploy Thomas Rue to be their Collector, and gave him a Sallary of 30. pound Sterling for a year.
verb
- 1
To pay on the basis of a period of a week or longer, especially to convert from another form of compensation.
adjective
- 1
obsoleteSaline.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Salary in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.
Where does salary come from?
From Middle English salarie, from Anglo-Norman salarie, from Old French salaire, from Latin salārium (“wages”), the neuter form of the adjective salārius (“related to salt”), from sal (“salt”). There have been various attempts to explain how the Latin term for “wages” came from the adjective “related to salt”. It is generally assumed that salārium was an abbreviation of salārium argentum (“salt money”), though that phrase is not attested.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).