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WAGES
| Pronunciation (US): |  | (GB): | |
I. (noun)
Sense 1
Meaning:
A recompense for worthy acts or retribution for wrongdoing
Example:
virtue is its own reward
Synonyms:
Classified under:
Hypernyms ("wages" is a kind of...):
aftermath; consequence (the outcome of an event especially as relative to an individual)
II. (verb)
Sense 1
Present simple (third person singular) of the verb wage
Context examples:
I saw these advertisements about harpooners, and high wages, so I went to the shipping agents, and they sent me here.
(The Return of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
But when nothing remained of all her three month's work except a heap of ashes and the money in her lap, Jo looked sober, as she sat on the floor, wondering what she ought to do about her wages.
(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)
Whatever a sailor purchases is taken from his subsequent earnings on the sealing grounds; for, as it is with the hunters so it is with the boat-pullers and steerers—in the place of wages they receive a lay, a rate of so much per skin for every skin captured in their particular boat.
(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)
The Doctor was very fond of eating, and would have a good dinner every day; and Mrs. Grant, instead of contriving to gratify him at little expense, gave her cook as high wages as they did at Mansfield Park, and was scarcely ever seen in her offices.
(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)
This nerved me to get rid of Mary Anne, who went so mildly, on receipt of wages, that I was surprised, until I found out about the tea-spoons, and also about the little sums she had borrowed in my name of the tradespeople without authority.
(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)
An interview with a surly gatekeeper and a surlier foreman, both of whom were appeased with the coin of the realm, put me on the track of Bloxam; he was sent for on my suggesting that I was willing to pay his day's wages to his foreman for the privilege of asking him a few questions on a private matter.
(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)
The wages for two is a hundred and board.
(Martin Eden, by Jack London)
A farmer had a faithful and diligent servant, who had worked hard for him three years, without having been paid any wages.
(Fairy Tales, by The Brothers Grimm)
I used to be able to keep two assistants, but now I only keep one; and I would have a job to pay him but that he is willing to come for half wages so as to learn the business.
(The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
He said, if we were governed by our own consent, in the persons of our representatives, he could not imagine of whom we were afraid, or against whom we were to fight; and would hear my opinion, whether a private man’s house might not be better defended by himself, his children, and family, than by half-a-dozen rascals, picked up at a venture in the streets for small wages, who might get a hundred times more by cutting their throats?
(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)
