Wages

4 definitions found

From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48 [gcide]:

  Wages \Wa"ges\ (w[=a]"j[e^]z), n. plural in termination, but
     singular in signification. [Plural of wage; cf. F. gages,
     pl., wages, hire. See {Wage}, n.]
     1. A compensation given to a hired person for services; price
        paid for labor; recompense; hire. See {Wage}, n., 2.
        [1913 Webster]


  
              The wages of sin is death.            --Rom. vi. 23.
        [1913 Webster]
  
     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.
        [Webster 1913 Suppl.]
  
     {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. --Encyc. Brit.
        [1913 Webster]
  
     Syn: See under {Wage}, n.
          [1913 Webster]

From WordNet (r) 2.0 [wn]:

  wages
       n : a recompense for worthy acts or retribution for wrongdoing;
           "the wages of sin is death"; "virtue is its own reward"
           [syn: {reward}, {payoff}]

From Easton's 1897 Bible Dictionary [easton]:

  Wages
     Rate of (mention only in Matt. 20:2); to be punctually paid
     (Lev. 19:13; Deut. 24:14, 15); judgements threatened against the
     withholding of (Jer. 22:13; Mal. 3:5; comp. James 5:4); paid in
     money (Matt. 20:1-14); to Jacob in kind (Gen. 29:15, 20; 30:28;
     31:7, 8, 41).
     

From Bouvier's Law Dictionary, Revised 6th Ed (1856) [bouvier]:

  WAGES, contract. A compensation given to a hired person for his or her 
  services. As to servants wages, see Chitty, Contr. 171 as to sailors' wages, 
  Abbott on Ship. 473; generally, see 22. Vin. Abr. 406; Bac. Abr. Master, 
  &c., H; Marsh. Ins. 89; 2 Lill. Abr. 677; Peters' Dig. Admiralty, pl. 231, 
  et seq.