A pittance is a wretchedly small amount of money. Paid a pittance, a mere pittance, work for a pittance.
It is always a complaint and always about wages or an allowance. The word began as a pious donation to a monastery for extra food, which is a long way from the modern sense of being underpaid.
1nounpittanceA wretchedly small amount of money.
“The farm workers were paid a pittance for twelve hours in the fields.”
pittance is an amount.
Old French pitance was a pious donation to a monastery, from Latin pietas, piety.
Latin
pietās — piety
Medieval Latin
*pietāntia
Old French
pitance
Middle English
pitaunce
English, today
pittance
From Middle English pitaunce, from Old French pitance, pitence, from Medieval Latin pietāntia, from Latin pietās (“piety”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA