wage 
wage (wāj)
transitive verb waged, wag′·ing
- to engage in or carry on (a war, struggle, campaign, etc.)
- Chiefly Brit., Dialectal to hire
Etymology: ME wagen < NormFr wagier (OFr gagier) < wage (OFr gage), a stake, pledge < Frank *wadi, akin to Goth wadi, a pledge: for IE base see wed
noun
- money paid to an employee for work done, and usually figured on an hourly, daily, or piecework basis
- what is given in return; recompense; requital: formerly the plural form was often construed as singular “The wages of sin is death”
- Econ. the share of the total product of industry that goes to labor, as distinguished from the share taken by capital
wage
n.
wage (also often ?wages) applies to money paid an employee at relatively short intervals, often daily, or weekly, esp. for manual or physical labor; salary applies to fixed compensation usually paid at longer intervals, often monthly or semimonthly, esp. to clerical or professional workers; stipend is a somewhat lofty substitute for salary, or it is applied to a pension or similar fixed payment; fee applies to the payment requested or given for professional services, as of a doctor, lawyer, artist, etc.; pay is a general term equivalent to any of the preceding, but it is specifically used of compensation to members of the armed forces; emolument is an elevated substitute for salary or ?wages and may refer to additional benefits and perquisites
wage
v.
n
Object
- war: Some are waging war in a spiritual battle against giving in or giving up.
Converse of object
- earn: You will learn valuable skills for the trade of your choice whilst earning a wage.
- pay: I cannot say whether wives working in family businesses were paid a wage or given a share of the takings for their personal use.
Adjective modifier
- minimum: The minimum wage had minimal impact on the pay of UNISON members.
- decent: All of us agreed that we needed to fight for a decent wage that we could live on.
- hourly: On average, Pakistani and Bangladeshi women earn only 56 per cent of the average hourly wage of White men.
- average: The average wage is usually at least $ 1,000 to $ 1,500.
- weekly: He soon became a molder, like his father, and by 1862 his weekly wage had increased to a sovereign.
- low: Servants often worked eighteen hours a day with only half a day off once a week, for very low wages.
Modifies a noun
- earner: Henry's death hit his parents hard as he was the only wage earner in the family.
- packet: This trip was paid for out of their own wage packets.
- inflation: The level of wage inflation, which has been low, will be reassessed at the start of 2006.
- bill: How can we keep buying players, we should be reducing the wage bill.
- slavery: Leave aside the socialist future and the abolition of wage slavery.
- differential: We have revisited this in the light of the new ONS methodology and more recent information about the impact on wage differentials.
Noun used with modifier
- worker's: It also means debating the issue of an elected representative on a worker's wage.
- starvation: They have no money for their transportation, for they are receiving starvation wages or no wages, at all.
Possessives
- laborer: A laborer's wages 0 0 10 " A master mason or tyler 0 1 2 " 1617.
Preposition: in
- lieu: The contract also said that his employers could pay him wages in lieu of notice.
Preposition: of
- sin: The wages of sin is always death - sooner or later.
One man's wage rise is another man's price increase.
We wage no war with women nor with priests.
Browse dictionary entries near wage
- wage earner ›
- wage-push inflation ›
- wage scale ›
- wager ›
- wageworker ›
- waggery ›
- waggish ›
- waggle ›
- waggon ›
- Wagner ›
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