Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A regular payment, usually on an hourly, daily, or weekly basis, made by an employer to an employee, especially for manual or unskilled work.
  • noun The price of labor in an economy.
  • noun A fitting return; a recompense.
  • transitive verb To engage in (a war or campaign, for example).

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A gage; a pledge; a stake.
  • noun That which is paid for a service rendered; what is paid for labor; hire: now usually in the plural.
  • noun Synonyms Pay, Hire, etc. See salary.
  • To pledge; bet; stake on a chance; lay; wager.
  • To venture on; hazard; attempt; encounter.
  • To engage in, as in a contest; carry on, as a war; undertake.
  • To let out for pay.
  • To hire for pay; engage or employ for wages.
  • To pay wages to.
  • In ceramics, to knead, work, or temper, as potters' clay.
  • To contend; battle.
  • To serve as a pledge or stake for something else; be opposed as equal stakes in a wager; be equal in value: followed by with.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • intransitive verb obsolete To bind one's self; to engage.
  • noun obsolete That which is staked or ventured; that for which one incurs risk or danger; prize; gage.
  • noun That for which one labors; meed; reward; stipulated payment for service performed; hire; pay; compensation; -- at present generally used in the plural. See Wages.
  • noun See under 1st Board.
  • transitive verb To pledge; to hazard on the event of a contest; to stake; to bet, to lay; to wager.
  • transitive verb To expose one's self to, as a risk; to incur, as a danger; to venture; to hazard.
  • transitive verb To engage in, as a contest, as if by previous gage or pledge; to carry on, as a war.
  • transitive verb obsolete To adventure, or lay out, for hire or reward; to hire out.
  • transitive verb obsolete To put upon wages; to hire; to employ; to pay wages to.
  • transitive verb (O. Eng. Law) To give security for the performance of.
  • transitive verb (O. Eng. Law) to give gage, or security, for joining in the duellum, or combat. See Wager of battel, under Wager, n.
  • transitive verb (Law) to give security to make one's law. See Wager of law, under Wager, n.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun An amount of money paid to a worker for a specified quantity of work, usually expressed on an hourly basis.
  • verb transitive, obsolete To wager, bet.
  • verb transitive, obsolete To employ for wages; to hire.
  • verb transitive To conduct or carry out (a war or other contest).

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • verb carry on (wars, battles, or campaigns)
  • noun something that remunerates

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English, from Old North French, of Germanic origin.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Anglo-Norman, from Old Northern French wage, a northern variant of Old French gauge, guage (whence modern French gage), itself (possibly through a Vulgar Latin root *wadium) from Frankish *waddi, wadja (cognate with Old English wedd), from Proto-Germanic *wadjō, *wadi- (“pledge”), from Proto-Indo-European *wadh- (“to pledge, redeem a pledge”). Akin to Old Norse veþja "to pledge", Gothic wadi. Cf. also the doublet gage. More at wed. Possible contributory etylomolgy from from the Old English wæge (meaning "weight," as wages at times have been goods or coin measured on a scale).

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Middle English wagen ("to pledge"), from Anglo-Norman, Old Northern French wagier, a northern variant of Old French guagier (whence modern French gager), itself either from guage or from a derivative of Frankish *waddi, *wadja, possibly through a Vulgar Latin intermediate *wadiare from *wadium.

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Examples

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  • WeirdNet is accurate enough, I suppose, but what an opaque way of putting it.

    April 7, 2009

  • salario

    September 17, 2013