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/wˈeɪdʒəz/ /wˈeɪdʒɪz/ Listen

noun

Wages n.

1.

(plural in termination, but singular in signification) A compensation given to a hired person for services; price paid for labor; recompense; hire. See Wage, n., 2. "The wages of sin is death."

2.

(Economics) The share of the annual product or national dividend which goes as a reward to labor, as distinct from the remuneration received by capital in its various forms. This economic or technical sense of the word wages is broader than the current sense, and includes not only amounts actually paid to laborers, but the remuneration obtained by those who sell the products of their own work, and the wages of superintendence or management, which are earned by skill in directing the work of others.

Wages fund (Polit. Econ.), the aggregate capital existing at any time in any country, which theoretically is unconditionally destined to be paid out in wages. It was formerly held, by Mill and other political economists, that the average rate of wages in any country at any time depended upon the relation of the wages fund to the number of laborers. This theory has been greatly modified by the discovery of other conditions affecting wages, which it does not take into account.

Synonyms: See under Wage, n.

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Etymology of 'Wages'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Wages" Quotes from Famous Books

... insufficient method of attending to his garbage, or by a lack of ordinary cleanliness. If he will not clean his premises himself, the law sees to it that they are cleaned for him. Already we are beginning to understand that no man has a right to employ another man or woman or child at wages which are not sufficient to maintain the one thus employed. The wages of many people are exceedingly meager, notably those of women and children. He can read but ill the signs of the times who does not foresee an early end to the exploiting of the labor of these helpless creatures. Humanity ...

— The Meaning of Evolution • Samuel Christian Schmucker

... view that it should commence with the first dawnings of reason, Dominie Sampson was easily induced to renounce his public profession of parish schoolmaster, make his constant residence at the Place, and, in consideration of a sum not quite equal to the wages of a footman even at that time, to undertake to communicate to the future Laird of Ellangowan all the erudition which he had, and all the graces and accomplishments which—he had not indeed, but which he had never discovered that he wanted. In ...

— Guy Mannering, or The Astrologer, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott

... infringement of his principles to inforce by his own behaviour the abominable doctrine of passive obedience, and to insist that Jobson should either become a covenanter, or quit his service, and forfeit his wages. Jobson had once heard the rigmarole, as he called it, read over, and by a strange perverseness of understanding, fancied these indentures of faith and unity, to be no other than binding himself to the Devil, to pull down the ...

— The Loyalists, Vol. 1-3 - An Historical Novel • Jane West

... see that cake of ice with something black upon 30 it, my lads? Put me alongside of that and I'll give you a month's extra wages when you are ...

— Story Hour Readings: Seventh Year • E.C. Hartwell

... time of the Great Awakening she had still outstanding L39,000 for which the colony was responsible. Of this, all but L6000 had been covered by special taxation. There still remained, however, about L33,000 which had been lent to the various counties. Taxation was heavy, wages low and prices high, and there was not a man in the colony who did not feel the effect of the rapidly depreciating currency.[98] This general depression fell upon a generation of New Englanders ...

— The Development of Religious Liberty in Connecticut • M. Louise Greene, Ph. D.

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