Word of the Day Archive
Wednesday July 9, 2008
emolument \ih-MOL-yuh-muhnt\ , noun:
The wages or perquisites arising from office, employment, or labor; gain; compensation.
The record indicates that few grandees who pleaded poverty to avoid service were left without substantial maintenance grants and emoluments and that the Crown gladly financed their luxurious military lifestyles.
-- Fernando Gonzales de Leon, "Aristocratic draft-dodgers in 17th-century Spain", History Today, 7/1
Although not very rich, he is easy in his circumstances and would not with a view to emolument alone wish for employment.
-- Henry Dundas, quoted in The Elgin Affair, by Theodore Vrettos
And they are not obliged to follow those occupations, if they prefer leisure to emolument.
-- John Stuart Mill, On Liberty
Emolument derives from Latin emolumentum, originally a sum paid to a miller for grinding out one's wheat, from molere, "to grind." It is related to molar, the "grinding" tooth.
Dictionary.com Entry and Pronunciation for emolument
