• IPA: /weɪd͡ʒ/

wage (plural wages)

1. An amount of money paid to a worker for a specified quantity of work, usually calculated on an hourly basis and expressed in an amount of money per hour.

• earnings, pay, salary

• French: salaire
• German: Lohn, Arbeitsentgelt
• Italian: salario, paga
• Portuguese: salário, ordenado, remuneração
• Russian: за́работная пла́та
• Spanish: salario, sueldo

wage (wages, present participle waging; past and past participle waged)

1. (transitive, obsolete) To wager, bet.
   • c. 1606, William Shakespeare, King Lear

     My life I never held but as a pawn
     To wage against thine enemies

2. (transitive, obsolete) To expose oneself to, as a risk; to incur, as a danger; to venture; to hazard.
   • c. 1597 William Shakespeare, Henry IV, Part 1

     I fear the power of Percy is too weak
     To wage an instant trial with the King.

   • c. 1603–1604, William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Othello, the Moore 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 iii]:

     to wake and wage a danger profitless.

3. (transitive, obsolete) To employ for wages; to hire.
   • 1485, Sir Thomas Malory, [http://quod.lib.umich.edu/c/cme/MaloryWks2/1:3.16?rgn=div2;view=fulltext chapter xviij], in Le Morte Darthur, book I:

     Thenne said Arthur I wille goo with yow / Nay said the kynges ye shalle not at this tyme / for ye haue moche to doo yet in these landes / therfore we wille departe / and with the grete goodes that we haue goten in these landes by youre yeftes we shalle wage good knyghtes & withstande the kynge Claudas malyce

   • abundance of treasure which he had in store, wherewith he might wage soldiers

4. (transitive) To conduct or carry out (a war or other contest).
   • 1832, Isaac Taylor, Saturday Evening

     The two are waging war, and the one triumphs by the destruction of the other.

   • 1709, John Dryden, Mac Flecknoe

     pond'ring which of all his Sons was fit
     To Reign, and wage immortal War with Wit

5. (transitive) To adventure, or lay out, for hire or reward; to hire out.

   • Thou […] must wage thy works for wealth.

6. (obsolete, legal, UK) To give security for the performance of.

• French: mener
• German: führen
• Italian: condurre
• Portuguese: conduzir, travar (uma guerra)
• Russian: вести́
• Spanish: hacer, librar, mover