salaryman

Etymology

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

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈsæl.əɹ.i.mæn/
• Rhymes: -æn

Noun

salaryman (plural salarymen)

1. An employee, a worker; now especially a Japanese white-collar worker who works long hours and has an insignificant position within the corporate hierarchy. [from 18th c.]
   • 2000, Harry Harootunian, Overcome by Modernity, page 205:

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

   • 2011, ‘Land of the wasted talent’, The Economist, 5 Nov 2011:

     The Japanese workplace is not quite as sexist as it used to be. Pictures of naked women, ubiquitous on salarymen’s desks in the 1990s, have been removed.