Wa"ges (?), n. pl.
(Theoretical 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.
Wa"ges (?), n. plural in termination, but singular in signification. [Plural
of wage; cf. F. gages, pl., wages, hire. See Wage, n.]
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.
Rom. vi. 23. 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.
Syn. -- See under Wage, n.
Hear it pronounced