wage
Americannoun
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wages
plural
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Often wages. money that is paid or received for work or services, as by the hour, day, or week.
- Synonyms:
- remuneration, compensation, emolument, earnings
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Economics. Usually wages. the share of the products of industry received by labor for its work (as distinct from the share going to capital).
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(used with a singular or plural verb) Usually wages. recompense or return.
The wages of sin is death.
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Obsolete. a pledge or security.
verb (used with object)
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wages,
present (3rd person singular)
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waged,
past participle, past
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waging
present participle
verb (used without object)
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wages,
present (3rd person singular)
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waged,
past participle, past
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waging
present participle
noun
-
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(often plural) payment in return for work or services, esp that made to workmen on a daily, hourly, weekly, or piece-work basis Compare salary
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( as modifier )
wage freeze
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(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
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(often plural) recompense, return, or yield
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an obsolete word for pledge
Synonym Usage
See pay 1.
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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wagesimple
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wagessimple
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have wagedperfect
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has wagedperfect
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am wagingprogressive
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are wagingprogressive
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is wagingprogressive
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have been wagingperfect progressive
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has been wagingperfect progressive
Past
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wagedsimple
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had wagedperfect
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was wagingprogressive
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were wagingprogressive
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had been wagingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of wage
First recorded in 1275–1325; (noun) Middle English: “pledge, security,” from Anglo-French; Old French guage gage 1, from unattested Vulgar Latin wadium, from Germanic ( see wed); (verb) Middle English wagen “to pledge,” from Anglo-French wagier; Old French guagier, from unattested Vulgar Latin wadiāre, derivative of wadium
Explanation
If your job pays a good wage, it means that you earn a lot of money for the hard work you do. If you're not happy with your wage, you might have to wage war on your boss. Wage is one of those words whose verb and noun forms have entirely different meanings. A worker's wage is how much money she makes. But when you wage something, you carry it out: for example, a warmonger is someone whose primary goal is to wage wars. The word is of Germanic origin, and it's related to both gage and wed, with their underlying meanings of "to pledge."
Vocabulary lists containing wage
Labor Day Lexicon: Words That Put You To Work
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Unit 3: Compelling Evidence
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List 8
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
They expect wage and dividend payments by major chip companies to reach 5.2% of GDP in 2027, the highest level in the available historical data.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 21, 2026
Ahead of these events, the group is asking that employers provide union and living wage jobs, funding for 50,000 units of housing for working families, a moratorium on short-term rentals and protections for immigrant workers.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 20, 2026
Amazon employees are in line for an increase to their minimum starting wage.
From Barron's ● Sep. 16, 2026
For one, unemployment was at historic lows in 2023, and while inflation was high, so was wage growth.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 15, 2026
For millions of Americans, that $10—or even $8 or $6—hourly wage is all there is.
From "Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America" by Barbara Ehrenreich
About a third of this will go towards wages for soldiers, while the remainder will largely go towards weapons and equipment, the release said.
From Barron's ● Sep. 17, 2026
A softening job market was supposed to take pressure off wages and prices.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 16, 2026
The rise in wages of 3.9% is likely to determine the April 2027 state pension increase.
From BBC ● Sep. 15, 2026
Many feminists, especially socialist ones, have demanded wages for housework as well as childcare—salaries, in other words, for mothers who stay home.
From Slate ● Sep. 14, 2026
That’s why operators are always real polite to people calling from prisons, Shadow had decided: they knew that he paid their wages.
From "American Gods" by Neil Gaiman
Icahn jumped into that deal with other big investors and waged one of the most-heated deal fights in history, arguing the price was undervalued.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 21, 2026
Argentina and the UK waged a brief but bitter war over the territory in 1982.
From BBC ● Sep. 3, 2026
Turek could also benefit from the strong campaign being waged by gubernatorial front-runner Rob Sand, who tops the Democratic ticket.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 30, 2026
Still, even trade wars waged for silly reasons can have real consequences.
From Slate ● Aug. 25, 2026
Blacks in Atlanta waged an effective boycott of Jim Crow trolley cars in 1894, and in the next decade, boycotts spread to over a dozen Southern cities, including Houston and Mobile.
From "The Best of Enemies" by Osha Gray Davidson
Gen. Rob Bonta from waging a legal battle to block Paramount’s $111-billion acquisition of Warner Bros.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 14, 2026
While Karadzic was the ideologue and Milosevic the wily politician, Mladic was the soldier and his metier was waging war.
From Barron's ● Aug. 27, 2026
"We're not waging any kind of "battle" against Spain; we're simply carefully controlling arrivals," he said.
From BBC ● Aug. 15, 2026
Revolution or not, few doubt that the way of waging war is experiencing rapid—and accelerating—change.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 7, 2026
Van Riper beat Blue Team because of what he had learned about waging war in the jungles of Vietnam.
From "Blink" by Malcolm Gladwell
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
