wages

Concise Oxford English Dictionary © 2008 Oxford University Press:
wage/weɪʤ/

▶noun (also wages)

• 1 a fixed regular payment for work, typically paid on a daily or weekly basis.

  ■ (wages) Economics the part of total production that is the return to labour as earned income as distinct from the remuneration received by capital as unearned income.

• 2 the result or effect of doing something wrong or unwise: the wages of sin.

▶verb carry on (a war or campaign).

– derivatives
waged adjective.

– origin ME: from Anglo-Norman Fr. and Old North. Fr., of Gmc origin; rel. to gage1 and wed.