wage
part of speech
noun (a wage, wages); verb (wage, wages, waged, waging — wage war, wage a campaign)
meaning for a pupil
1) A wage is the money a worker is paid for their work, usually counted by the hour, day or week. tree →
2) Wages (plural) is the money someone earns, as in «his weekly wages». tree →
3) (verb, formal) To wage a war or a fight means to carry it on for a long time. tree →
sense in the lessons
In maths word problems a wage is often a rate: money per hour or per week, so you multiply by the number of hours or weeks to find the total pay. In everyday life it tells you about jobs and money. Phrases: «hourly wage», «minimum wage», «living wage», «earn a wage», «wage war on», «a wage rise».
examples
- Mum's wage goes up next month. tree →
- Sam earns a wage of 12 dollars an hour; how much does he earn in 5 hours? tree →
- The workers asked for higher wages. tree →
- The minimum wage is the lowest pay allowed by law. tree →
- He spends half his wages on rent. tree →
- The town waged a campaign against litter. tree →
- The two kingdoms waged war for many years. tree →
- "Give me my wage," said Ivan. tree →
note
Countable: a wage, wages. «Wages» is often used in the plural for the same meaning. Compare salary (a fixed yearly amount, usually paid monthly) and wage (often hourly or weekly). Maths: total wage = rate × time; «per hour» signals multiplication.
In the corpora
- Most professional footballers retire in their 30s, and many outside the top leagues earn ordinary wages and need a second career.
- A wage is pay for each hour or each week worked; fewer hours means less money.
- The minimum wage is the lowest pay per hour the law allows; raising it gives workers more but raises costs for businesses.
- A wage or salary is the money a worker is paid for their work.
- And he said: 'Appoint me thy wages, and I will give it.'
Trees and pragmatics
Every meaning and example of «wage» parsed by Mova, each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.