salary

From Latin salarium, a stipend paid to Roman soldiers, traditionally connected to sal, salt — a commodity valuable enough that it may once have been part of a soldier's pay.

The word drifted from a specific soldier's allowance to any regular payment for work at all, shedding its connection to salt so completely that no English speaker today thinks of seasoning when they mention a salary.

The same Latin sal gives English salad, sauce, and sausage, and lives on in the phrase “worth one's salt.”