Word of the day: emolument

The word is in the air. Merriam-Webster’s legal definition:

a return arising from office or employment usually in the form of compensation or perquisites <the President shall, at stated times, receive for his services, a compensation . . . and he shall not receive within that period any other emolument — U.S. Constitution art. II>

I would add: See also kleptocracy.

I wondered whether emolument is related to emollient, but the resemblance is just coincidence. Emolument comes from the Latin verb emolere, “to produce by grinding.” Merriam-Webster explains that by 1480, when emolument first appeared in English,

Latin emolumentum had come to mean simply “profit” or “gain”; it had become removed from its own Latin predecessor, the verb molere, meaning “to grind.” The original connection between the noun and this verb was its reference to the profit or gain from grinding another’s grain.

Emollient comes from the Latin emollire, “to soften.” A president who receives many emoluments might be said to live a soft (not to mention corrupt) life, but that president would still need to pay for creams and lotions to soften the skin, unless that president’s preferred emollients are already among his or her emoluments.