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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

... the cook her wages, and do not mention the confession which I forced from her; a little sooner or later is of no consequence. Nothing but my extreme stupidity could have rendered me blind so long. Yet, whilst you assured me that you had no attachment, I thought we ...

— Mary Wollstonecraft • Elizabeth Robins Pennell

... of the Duke of Northumberland, our Board of Managers wished to see Mr. Faraday finish his career as President of the Institution, which he had entered on weekly wages more than half a century before. But he would have nothing to do with the presidency. He wished for rest, and the reverent affection of his friends was to him infinitely more precious than all the ...

— Faraday As A Discoverer • John Tyndall

... October, 1770, assembled a grand Procession, with coloured cockades, to start the opening of a Level, designed to be driven one mile and three quarters in length and eighty yards deep "in order" (so the notice ran) "to lay dry a body of coal for future ages." The wages were to be, for boys and lads employed about the horses, and windlasses—26 in number, 6d. a day, smiths, carpenters and labourers, above ground generally—42 in number, 1/4 a day, underground laboures 42, Cutters ...

— The Hawarden Visitors' Hand-Book - Revised Edition, 1890 • William Henry Gladstone

... additional workmen that would be required. Nearly all our native miners came from the highlands of the province of Segovia, near to the boundary of Honduras. The inhabitants of the lower country are mostly vacqueros, used to riding on horseback after cattle, and not to be tempted, even by the much higher wages they can obtain, to engage in the toilsome labour of underground mining. The inhabitants of Segovia, on the contrary, have been miners from time immemorial, and it is work they readily take to. I had often desired to see for myself ...

— The Naturalist in Nicaragua • Thomas Belt

... so, Baron," she said. "But anyone might easily mistake it for impertinence. If it was not hopeless to expect an intelligent answer from people who seem unable to stay right side up for a single moment, I should like to know what wages they receive ...

— In Brief Authority • F. Anstey

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