Often wages.money that is paid or received for work or services, as by the hour, day, or week.Compare living wage, minimum wage.
Usually wages.Economics. the share of the products of industry received by labor for its work (as distinct from the share going to capital).
Usually wages. (used with a singular or plural verb) recompense or return: The wages of sin is death.
Obsolete. a pledge or security.
verb (used with object),waged,wag·ing.
to carry on (a battle, war, conflict, argument, etc.): to wage war against a nation.
Chiefly BritishDialect. to hire.
Obsolete.
to stake or wager.
to pledge.
verb (used without object),waged,wag·ing.
Obsolete. to contend; struggle.
Origin of wage
First recorded in 1275–1325; (noun) Middle English: “pledge, security,” from Anglo-French; Old French guagegage1, from unattested Vulgar Latin wadium, from Germanic (see wed); (verb) Middle English wagen “to pledge,” from Anglo-French wagier;Old French guagier, from unattested Vulgar Latin wadiāre, derivative of wadium
The wage structure of waiting tables is a sexual-harassment machine.
Why Your Waiter Hates You|Jedediah Purdy|October 26, 2014|DAILY BEAST
Not only do dancers not get an hourly wage, they are usually forced to pay ‘stage fees’ to work each shift.
Oregon’s Stripper Lobby: Legislators Ask Exotic Dancers for Help With Strip Club Bill|Mary Emily O’Hara|October 6, 2014|DAILY BEAST
In Scotland, hourly wage inequality matches the rest of the United Kingdom once the skew of London is factored out.
Scotland’s ‘Yes’ Campaign and the Myth of Scottish Equality|Noah Caldwell|September 18, 2014|DAILY BEAST
It is time to wage campaigns based on competing ideas, values, and proposals.
Angry About Ferguson? Oppose Voter ID Laws|Jacob Lupfer|August 26, 2014|DAILY BEAST
The wage gave Clara and her women friends a measure of independence—on a day off they could pretty much do as they liked.
The Tragic, Heroic Women of World War I|Jacqueline Winspear|June 29, 2014|DAILY BEAST
It was reserved for Rationalism to accept and harmonise the double truth, and to wage war against both infallibilities.
The Book Of God|G. W. Foote
So I figger we can get several wagon-loads of "Wage of Sin" at fifty cents per volume.'
Kilo|Ellis Parker Butler
If he could work without food his wage would be reduced to the vanishing point.
Labor and Freedom|Eugene V. Debs
So I take my wage le maître he give, and exchange for the traps.
Winter Adventures of Three Boys|Egerton R. Young
Wage rates to be periodically revised to correspond with variations in the cost of living.
Harper's Pictorial Library of the World War, Volume XII|Various
British Dictionary definitions for wage
wage
/ (weɪdʒ) /
noun
(often plural)payment in return for work or services, esp that made to workmen on a daily, hourly, weekly, or piece-work basisCompare salary
(as modifier)wage freeze
(plural)economicsthe portion of the national income accruing to labour as earned income, as contrasted with the unearned income accruing to capital in the form of rent, interest, and dividends
(often plural)recompense, return, or yield
an obsolete word for pledge
verb(tr)
to engage in
obsoleteto pledge or wager
archaic another word for hire (def. 1), hire (def. 2)
Derived forms of wage
wageless, adjectivewagelessness, noun
Word Origin for wage
C14: from Old Northern French wagier to pledge, from wage, of Germanic origin; compare Old English weddian to pledge, wed