noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun

1. 1
   An employee, a worker; now especially a Japanese white-collar worker who works long hours yet has an insignificant position within the corporate hierarchy.

   "In this way, the salaryman was both a progressive social stratum and an intellectual class."

Example

More examples

"The salaryman went to live quietly in a remote area in order to atone for his sins."

Etymology

Calque of Japanese サラリーマン (sararīman), from English salary + man, possibly from the phrase salaried man.

Related phrases

white collar

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.