wager

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

• noun An agreement under which each bettor pledges a certain amount to the other depending on the outcome of an unsettled matter.
• noun A matter bet on; a gamble.
• noun Something that is staked on an uncertain outcome; a bet.
• noun Archaic A pledge of personal combat to resolve an issue or case.
• intransitive verb To risk or stake (an amount or possession) on an uncertain outcome; bet.
• intransitive verb To make a bet.

from The Century Dictionary.

• To hazard on the issue of a contest, or on some question that is to be decided, or on some casualty; bet; lay; stake.
• To make a wager on; bet on: followed by a clause as object: as, I wager you are wrong.
• To make a bet; offer a wager.
• noun A pledge; a gage; a guaranty.
• noun Something hazarded on an uncertain event; a Stake.
• noun The act of betting; a bet.
• noun That on which bets are laid; the subject of a bet.
• noun In old English law, an offer to make oath of innocence or non-indebtedness; also, the act of making such oath, the oaths of eleven compurgators being conjoined as fortifying the defendant's oath.

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

• intransitive verb To make a bet; to lay a wager.
• transitive verb To hazard on the issue of a contest, or on some question that is to be decided, or on some eventuality; to lay; to stake; to bet.
• noun Something deposited, laid, or hazarded on the event of a contest or an unsettled question; a bet; a stake; a pledge.
• noun (Law) A contract by which two parties or more agree that a certain sum of money, or other thing, shall be paid or delivered to one of them, on the happening or not happening of an uncertain event.
• noun That on which bets are laid; the subject of a bet.
• noun (O. Eng. Law) the giving of gage, or pledge, for trying a cause by single combat, formerly allowed in military, criminal, and civil causes. In writs of right, where the trial was by champions, the tenant produced his champion, who, by throwing down his glove as a gage, thus waged, or stipulated, battle with the champion of the demandant, who, by taking up the glove, accepted the challenge. The wager of battel, which has been long in disuse, was abolished in England in 1819, by a statute passed in consequence of a defendant's having waged his battle in a case which arose about that period. See Battel.
• noun (Law) the giving of gage, or sureties, by a defendant in an action of debt, that at a certain day assigned he would take a law, or oath, in open court, that he did not owe the debt, and at the same time bring with him eleven neighbors (called compurgators), who should avow upon their oaths that they believed in their consciences that he spoke the truth.
• noun (Insurance Law) See under Policy.
• noun A contract which is of the nature of wager. Contracts of this nature include various common forms of valid commercial contracts, as contracts of insurance, contracts dealing in futures, options, etc. Other wagering contracts and bets are now generally made illegal by statute against betting and gambling, and wagering has in many cases been made a criminal offence.

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

• noun Agent noun of wage; one who wages.
• noun Something deposited, laid, or hazarded on the event of a contest or an unsettled question; a bet; a stake; a pledge.
• noun A contract by which two parties or more agree that a certain sum of money, or other thing, shall be paid or delivered to one of them, on the happening or not happening of an uncertain event.
• noun That on which bets are laid; the subject of a bet.
• verb transitive To bet something; to put it up as collateral
• verb intransitive, figuratively To daresay.

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

• noun the money risked on a gamble
• verb maintain with or as if with a bet
• noun the act of gambling
• verb stake on the outcome of an issue