• IPA: /ɡeɪd͡ʒ/

gage (gages, present participle gaging; past and past participle gaged)

1. (obsolete) To give or deposit as a pledge or security; to pawn.
   • c. 1599–1602, William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmarke”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies: Published According to the True Originall Copies (First Folio), London: Printed by Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, OCLC 606515358 ↗, [Act I, scene i]:

     A moiety competent / Was gaged by our king.

2. (archaic) To wager, to bet.

   • This feast, I'll gage my life, / Is but a plot to train you to your ruin.

3. To bind by pledge, or security; to engage.
   • c. 1596–1598, William Shakespeare, “The Merchant of Venice”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies: Published According to the True Originall Copies (First Folio), London: Printed by Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, OCLC 606515358 ↗, [Act I, scene i]:

     Great debts / Wherein my time, sometimes too prodigal, / Hath left me gaged.

gage (plural gages)

1. Something, such as a glove or other pledge, thrown down as a challenge to combat (now usually figurative).
   • 1819, Walter Scott, Ivanhoe:

     “But it is enough that I challenge the trial by combat — there lies my gage.” She took her embroidered glove from her hand, and flung it down before the Grand Master with an air of mingled simplicity and dignity…

   • 1988, James McPherson, Battle Cry for Freedom, Oxford 2003, page 166:

     The gage was down for a duel that would split the Democratic party and ensure the election of a Republican president in 1860.

2. (obsolete) Something valuable deposited as a guarantee or pledge; security, ransom.
   • 1886, Henry James, The Princess Casamassima.

     [I]t seemed to create a sort of material link between the Princess and himself, and at the end of three months it almost appeared to him, not that the exquisite book was an intended present from his own hand, but that it had been placed in that hand by the most remarkable woman in Europe.... [T]he superior piece of work he had done after seeing her last, in the immediate heat of his emotion, turned into a kind of proof and gage, as if a ghost, in vanishing from sight, had left a palpable relic.

gage (plural gages)

1. Alternative spelling of gauge a measure, instrument for measuring, etc.

gage (gages, present participle gaging; past and past participle gaged)

1. (US) Alternative spelling of gauge to measure

gage (plural gages)

1. A subspecies of plum, Prunus domestica subsp. italica.

gage

1. (obsolete, UK, thieves) A quart pot. [15th–19th c.]
2. (archaic, UK, slang) A pint pot. [18th–19th c.c.]
3. (archaic, UK, slang, metonymically) A drink. [from 19th c.]
4. (archaic, UK, slang) A tobacco pipe. [mid 17th–early 19th c.]
5. (archaic, UK, slang) A chamberpot. [19th c.]
6. (archaic, UK, slang) A small quantity of anything. [19th c.]
7. (slang, dated) Marijuana

• IPA: /ɡeɪdʒ/

1. Surname
2. A male given name.
3. A female given name.
4. A ghost town in New Mexico.
5. A town in Oklahoma.