wage
pronunciation
How to pronounce wage in British English:
UK [weɪdʒ]
How to pronounce wage in American English:
US [weɪdʒ]
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- Noun:
- something that remunerates
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- Verb:
- as of wars, battles, or campaigns
Word Origin
- wage
- wage: [14] Wage and gage (as in engage) are doublets – that is to say, they come from the same ultimate source, but have drifted apart over the centuries. The source in this case was prehistoric Germanic *wathjam ‘pledge’, which is also the ancestor of English wedding. It was borrowed into Old French as gage, which is where English gets gage from; but its Anglo- Norman form was wage, which accounts for English wage. Gage, engage, and the derivative wager [14] all preserve to some degree the original notion of ‘giving a pledge or security’, but wage has moved on via ‘payment’ to ‘payment for work done’.=> engage, gage, wager, wedding
- wage (n.)
- c. 1300, "a payment for services rendered, reward, just deserts;" mid-14c., "salary paid to a provider of service," from Anglo-French and Old North French wage (Old French gage) "pledge, pay, reward," from Frankish *wadja- or another Germanic source (compare Old English wedd "pledge, agreement, covenant," Gothic wadi "pledge"), from Proto-Germanic *wadi- (see wed (v.)). Also from mid-14c., "a pledge, guarantee, surety" (usually in plural), and (c. 1400) "a promise or pledge to meet in battle." The "payment for service" sense by late 14c. extended to allotments of money paid at regular intervals for continuous or repeated service. Traditionally in English wages were payment for manual or mechanical labor and somewhat distinguished from salary or fee. Modern French cognate gages (plural) means "wages of a domestic," one of a range of French "pay" words distinguished by class, such as traitement (university professor), paye, salaire (workman), solde (soldier), récompense, prix. The Old English word was lean, related to loan and representing the usual Germanic word (Gothic laun, Dutch loon, German lohn). Wage-earner attested from 1871.
- wage (v.)
- c. 1300, "give (something) as surety, deposit as a pledge," from Old North French wagier "to pledge" (Old French gagier, "to pledge, guarantee, promise; bet, wager, pay," Modern French gager), from wage (see wage (n.)). Meaning "to carry on, engage in" (of war, etc.) is attested from mid-15c., probably from earlier sense of "to offer as a gage of battle, agree to engage in combat" (mid-14c.). Related: Waged; waging.
Example
- 1. Europeans worry a lot about wage competition .
- 2. My partner took a cut in both hours and wage .
- 3. He pays me a modest wage to help maintain his large yard .
- 4. Many latin american leaders still like to wage past political battles .
- 5. The minimum wage will be reduced .