Wage Definition

wāj
waged, wages, waging
noun
wages
Money paid to an employee for work done, and usually figured on an hourly, daily, or piecework basis.
Webster's New World
The price of labor in an economy.
American Heritage
What is given in return; recompense; requital.
“The wages of sin is death”
Webster's New World
The share of the total product of industry that goes to labor, as distinguished from the share taken by capital.
Webster's New World
The payment to an employee, usually based on hours worked or quantity of goods or services produced.
Webster's New World Law
verb
waged, wages, waging
To engage in or carry on (a war, struggle, campaign, etc.)
Webster's New World
To hire.
Webster's New World
To adventure, or lay out, for hire or reward; to hire out.
Wiktionary
Holinshed.
Abundance of treasure which he had in store, wherewith he might wage soldiers.
Wiktionary

To conduct or carry out (a war or other contest).

Wiktionary
Antonyms:

Other Word Forms of Wage

Noun

Singular:
wage
Plural:
wages

Origin of Wage

  • 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

  • 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.

    From Wiktionary

  • Middle English from Old North French of Germanic origin

    From American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition

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