These words refer to the money given for work. Salary and wage are complementary terms for the set amount of money paid periodically to an employee. Salary usually pertains to money received by white-collar workers or by executives in managerial positions; it implies an annual sum usually calculated to be paid by the week, fortnight or month. Wage , by contrast, usually pertains to the earnings of skilled workers and on down the scale to manual and menial positions; it often implies a set rate paid weekly or fortnightly: an executive salary starting at &10,000 a year; a minimum hourly wage of $1.25; the high wages paid for skilled labour.

Pay and remuneration are the informal and formal terms, respectively, for wages or salary in general: the wide gulf between the scale of pay for machinists and that for teachers; amateur golf competitions that rule out contestants who have played the game for remuneration . Pay is the preferred term in the military for the regular amount paid to personnel, usually at fortnightly intervals. In any case, pay most often suggests a permanent, recurring amount of money. Remuneration in some cases might sound too formal or roundabout, but it can pertain generally to a set amount that is paid once for a given service or one-time performance: a remuneration of &200 for marking examination papers.

Fee and stipend are specific forms of remuneration in the last sense described above. A fee is usually charged by a professional person as a sum set in advance for performing a specific, one-time function: the doctor’s fee for a general examination; asking the solicitor what his fee would be to take the case to court. A stipend is most often an allowance, also set in advance, but in this case applying mostly to a clergyman, teacher or public official: The magistrate was paid a stipend for his services to the community; the pastor received an annual stipend .

Honorarium technically refers to the remuneration given to a professional person for services rendered when law or custom forbids a set fee : a honorarium given a poet for a public reading of his own work. Often the word can become a mere euphemism for the inadequate remuneration : literary magazines that give five-dollar honorariums for critical articles from university lecturers who must publish to further their careers. Emolument is the most formal of these words and would seem a needless circumlocution when it substitutes for the already formal remuneration . Emolument has a unique area of relevance when it suggests the money that becomes available to one upon being appointed to a particular office; often this may include, by implication, fringe benefits, an expense account or other indirect monetary perquisites in addition to the stated salary or fee : the perfectly legal emoluments that sometimes go along with certain non-salaried offices.