wage
Pluralwages
Pluralwages
- 1Money paid to a worker for a specified quantity of work, usually calculated by the hour.
The new contract raised the minimum wage by two dollars an hour.
Many workers saw their wages frozen during the recession.
Similarpay, salary, earnings, income, remuneration
Note
Behind the paycheck stands a pledge. The word came through Anglo-Norman from a northern French form of the word that became modern French gage, and it goes back to a Germanic root meaning "pledge", related to Old English wedd. In everyday use it is often plural (her wages were 20% less), while the singular holds fixed phrases such as minimum wage. It names pay for time or output, unlike a salary, which is a fixed periodic sum.
- 2To fight a war or pursue a campaign or other sustained struggle.
The rebels waged a guerrilla campaign across the mountains.
Activists wage a long fight to protect the wetlands.
Similarconduct, fight, pursue, mount, prosecute
Note
Only this sense is fully alive today, and its company is narrow. War is its usual object, from Dryden's "wage immortal War with Wit" to a 2019 Game of Thrones review in which "the Last War will be waged." Campaign and battle come next. The verb rarely combines freely with other nouns, and it sits comfortably in the passive (a war waged on two fronts).
- 3
- 4To employ someone for wages; to hire.
The merchant waged several porters to carry his goods to the coast.
Nobles would wage soldiers to defend their castles.
Note
This obsolete sense makes the verb do the work of the noun: to wage someone is to put that person on wages. The object is always the person hired. Holinshed in 1577 writes of a ruler whose treasure meant he "might wage souldiers", and Malory's Le Morte Darthur of 1485 also uses it. Modern English says hire or employ instead.
- 5To stake money or goods on an uncertain outcome; to wager or bet.
The gambler waged his entire purse on the final hand.
My life I never held but as a pawn / To wage against thine enemies
c. 1603, William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of King Lear”Note
The verb has its own route from the same "pledge" family as the noun for pay. It came from Middle English wagen, "to pledge", which was borrowed from a northern French form of the verb that became modern French gager. Shakespeare's King Lear still uses it for staking: a life held "as a pawn / To wage against thine enemies". The sense is obsolete, so in modern prose the natural choices are wager or bet.
- 6To put oneself in the way of a risk or danger, accepting the chance of harm.
to wake and wage a danger profitless.
c. 1603, William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Othello, the Moore of Venice”I fear the power of Percy is too weak / To wage an instant trial with the King.
c. 1597, William Shakespeare, “The First Part of Henry the Fourth,”Note
Here the thing put at stake is one's own safety, and the object of the verb is the danger itself. Othello speaks of a reason "to wake and wage a danger profitless". In Henry IV, "to wage an instant trial with the King" can look like the war-waging sense to a modern eye, but it means to risk that trial. The sense is obsolete and is best read as a cousin of the betting sense.
- 7To give security or a guarantee for the performance of an obligation.
Note
A term of old English law in which the original "pledge" meaning survives intact. Its best-known phrase is to wage one's law: a defendant denied a charge on oath and backed that oath with compurgators or sureties, who served as security for its truth or for a later appearance. The procedure and the verb are both obsolete, so the term belongs in legal history.
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Origins
This came through Middle English and Anglo-Norman from Old Northern French wage (a northern form of Old French gauge, source of modern French gage) and Medieval Latin wadium, from Frankish *waddī, from Proto-Germanic *wadją ("pledge"), from a Proto-Indo-European root meaning "to pledge." It is related to Old English wedd and is a doublet of gage.
This came from Middle English wagen ("to pledge"), through Anglo-Norman and Old Northern French wagier, a northern variant of Old French guagier (source of modern French gager), which came either from guage or from a derivative of Frankish *waddī, possibly through a Vulgar Latin form *wadiō.