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wage

noun

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)

to carry on (a battle, war, conflict, argument, etc.): to wage war against a nation.

Chiefly British Dialect. to hire.

Obsolete.

to stake or wager.

to pledge.

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Wage is one of our favorite verbs.

So is peculate. Does it mean:

to steal or take dishonestly (money, esp. public funds, or property entrusted to one's care); embezzle.

to chew (food) slowly and thoroughly.

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verb (used without object)

Obsolete. to contend; struggle.

Origin:
1275–1325; (noun) Middle English: pledge, security < Anglo-French; Old French guage gage¹ < Vulgar Latin *wadium < Germanic (see wed); (v.) Middle English wagen to pledge < Anglo-French wagier; Old French guagier < Vulgar Latin *wadiāre, derivative of *wadium

Related forms

wage·less, adjective

wage·less·ness, noun

un·der·wage, noun

Can be confused: salary, wages.

Synonyms
1. earnings, emolument, compensation, remuneration. See pay¹. 5. undertake, prosecute.

Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2012.
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Link To wage

Example Sentences

The recent increase in the minimum wage seems to be a factor in the sharp decline in teenage unemployment.

The four players were paid a salary instead of an hourly wage.

One important cause of the recent quiescence of wage pressure may be that prices in general are being held down for other reasons.

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The recent increase in the minimum wage seems to be a factor in the sharp decline in teenage unemployment.

The four players were paid a salary instead of an hourly wage.

One important cause of the recent quiescence of wage pressure may be that prices in general are being held down for other reasons.

The kids are attracted to cascading waterfalls and rippling pools-park rangers wage a continuous battle to keep them dry.

There should not even be a minimum wage in my opinion.

They receive a monthly wage from the government to finish school, completing one grade every three.

Fairview gets our props both from its organic practices and for paying its farmworkers a living wage.

But wage declines, logically speaking, do not rule out a prosperous life.

Wage increases for employees at almost all income levels are giving important and unexpected support to the nation's economy.

Naturally that wage is cranked into the price of the meal.

Suppose you are a software engineer who gets paid the prevailing market wage.

He also claimed to earn a high enough wage to put aside savings.

Whether or not wage rates are cut- and typically they are actual earnings and hence demand falls progressively.

People celebrate but also wage wars about these differences.

Army introduced its plan to wage the wars of tomorrow.

But the wage gap is much bigger for older workers, a new.

Medicare reform, tax reform, wage stagnation or polarization.

Thanks to cheaper petrol, strong wage growth and booming stockmarkets, consumers have shrugged off these price falls.

The immune system then kicks in, and the body and the virus wage all-out war.

Even for a single person, this is essentially a poverty wage.

When the fabulously wealthy ask us wage slavers to pay attention to humanitarian issues, cognitive dissonance can ensue.

Debate on the question of raising the minimum wage often seems to be guided by a complex of political considerations.

The study also argues that for-profit students realize greater wage gains from their investment.

The government has fixed a minimum wage for temporary work, to stop eastern undercutting.

We've got cheaper lofts and residences, so folks can have a high quality of life on a start-up wage.

The employees are paid minimum wage or slightly higher, teated badly and have extremely poor morale.

It could even lead to a federal lawsuit or wage garnishment.

Wage gains at the lower end of the distribution held up fairly well.

At the same time they wage a subterranean war of allegation and antagonism.

Something should really be said about the lack of health insurance or a living wage for graduate students.

The idea is that employees on an hourly wage are tracked from the time they log in to the time they log out.

Guest workers are vulnerable to bullying, extortion, human trafficking and wage theft.

The minimum wage then doesn't seem so low to the employer.

All of this for a wage that works out to about four dollars an hour.

People who make a decent wage are more likely to be able to afford health insurance.

The point is, these guys are using all the tools they can to spread their message, and wage the information war.

Before you get started, though, make sure that you are starting a program with jobs and a wage worth the sacrifice.

Wage floors prop up the pay of unskilled workers and make services expensive to supply.

Governments wage wars on the socalled free people of their country, so they can rule them.

My guess is that she needed a job and the creationists were willing to pay her a good wage.

But without house payments, you can afford the wage decrease.

Plans are afoot to decentralise wage bargaining so that pay and terms of employment can vary by enterprise and region.

Modern man enjoys a robust understanding of the wage paid when he denies undesirable aspects in his perceptions of reality.

And if they did, they also may have expanded our sense of how nations wage war in cyberspace.

The resulting wage divergence should serve as a signal to the labour force that more professionals are needed.

These prices are not that high for our average wage earners.

Now he's paid an hourly wage out of a youth outreach fund.

The pressure on them to cut costs and wage packets is immense.

It may be that societies that do not wage war subscribe to different basic beliefs than those that.

War itself must be made obsolete and that means eliminating the reasons men wage war: nationalism, religion, greed.

Those policies also wage an immoral war on poor families.

To win one side must eliminate the other side's ability to wage war.

COLLAPSE

Collins

World English Dictionary

wage (weɪdʒ)

—n
1.	a. (often plural) Compare salary payment in return for work or services, esp that made to workmen on a daily, hourly, weekly, or piece-work basis
	b. (as modifier): wage freeze
2.	(plural) economics the 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
3.	(often plural) recompense, return, or yield
4.	an obsolete word for pledge

—vb
5.	to engage in
6.	obsolete to pledge or wager
7.	archaic hire another word for hire

[C14: from Old Northern French wagier to pledge, from wage, of Germanic origin; compare Old English weddian to pledge, wed]

'wageless

—*adj*

'wagelessness

—n

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 10th Edition
2009 © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins
Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009
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Etymonline

Word Origin & History

wage

c.1300, "a payment for services rendered," also in M.E. "a pledge of security" (1338), from O.N.Fr. wage (O.Fr. guage) "pledge," from Frank. *wadja- (cf. O.E. wedd, Gothic wadi "pledge"); see wed. Mod.Fr. cognate gages (pl.) means "wages of a domestic," one of a plethora of

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Fr. words for different classes, e.g. traitement (university professor), paye, salaire (workman), solde (soldier), récompense, prix. The O.E. (and usual Gmc.) word was lean, related to loan (cf. Goth. laun, Du. loon, Ger. lohn)

wage

c.1320, "to pledge, deposit as a pledge," from O.N.Fr. wagier (O.Fr. gagier), from wage (see wage (n.)). Meaning "to carry on" (of war, etc.) is attested from 1456, probably from earlier sense of "to offer as a gage of battle" (c.1430).

COLLAPSE

Encyclopedia Britannica

Encyclopedia

wage

income derived from human labour. Technically, wages and salaries cover all compensation made to employees for either physical or mental work, but they do not represent the income of the self-employed. Labour costs are not identical to wage and salary costs, because total labour costs may include such items as cafeterias or meeting rooms maintained for the convenience of employees. Wages and salaries usually include remuneration such as paid vacations, holidays, and sick leave, as well as fringe benefits and supplements in the form of pensions or health insurance sponsored by the employer. Additional compensation can be paid in the form of bonuses or stock options, many of which are linked to individual or group performance

Learn more about wage with a free trial on Britannica.com.

Encyclopedia Britannica, 2008. Encyclopedia Britannica Online.
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Matching Quote

"With the present wage conditions there are thousands of young women who are living in a state of semi-starvation and they are always surrounded by the most terrible temptation. Oh, I know that some of [the] greatest reformers insist that a girl's virtue is not affected by under-nourishment, disease and nervous collapse; but if these well housed, well fed, well dressed people were put in a dirty, ugly room, if their clothes did not protect them from the cold, if their stomachs were never filled, would not even the staunchest lose some of her self-respect when looking forward to an old age? It is only a matter of wonder to me that so many girls keep clean and decent through it all."

-Cora Anderson

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