Royalties are payments an author or musician earns from each sale. Collect royalties, royalties on every copy, royalty statement.
They are a share rather than a fee, which is what makes them uncertain — the writer is paid only if the work sells, and typical rates are a small percentage of the price. Streaming royalties per play are famously tiny. In mining, royalties are paid to whoever owns the rights.
1nounroyaltiesPayments an author or musician earns from each sale.
“She still receives royalties from the songs she wrote in her twenties.”
royalties is a payment.
Proto-Indo-European
*h₃reǵ-
Latin
rēgālis
Vulgar Latin
*rēgālitās
Old French
roialté
Middle English
royaltee
English
royalty
English, today
royalties
royalty comes from Middle English royaltee, roialtee, royalte, from Old French roialté, roiauté, realté (compare earlier Old French realted (“realm, kingdom”)), from Vulgar Latin rēgālitās, from Latin rēgālis, equivalent to royal + -ty. a doublet of regality.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA