salariat

9.3

A group of workers who get regular pay and benefits like health insurance

noun
/səˈlɛəriət/

Specialized

: salariado

The company's salariat enjoys a range of benefits including health insurance and paid vacation.

Examples

Many in the salariat prefer job security over the unpredictability of freelance work.
The increasing prevalence of remote work is reshaping the expectations of the salariat.
Just as insecure in its masculinity was the emerging middle class, white-collar salariat, consisting of clerks, professionals, engineers, and managers in the new corporate bureaucracies.

Academic text (1994)

Antonyms

freelancer

36 3.9

A person who works for different clients and gets paid per job

pieceworker

1 6.1

A person paid for each thing they make instead of by the hour

How Well-Paid

executive

659 4.5

manager

∞ 1.6

salariat

Specialized

9.3

pieceworker

1 6.1

Surface Forms

salariat singular

salariats plural

Morphology

salariat = salary (semi-transparent) = salary + ariat

The meaning 'class of salaried employees' is inferable from 'salary' but relies on the borrowed bound morpheme '-ariat' (a non-productive formation meaning 'class of'), so learners may not fully generalize the pattern.

Etymology

Salariat begins with salary, from Latin salarium, which comes from sal ('salt') because salt was once used to pay soldiers. It uses the same ending as proletariat to name a social group, so salariat means the class of people who get regular salaries.