Source : Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913)

Wages \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.

Wager \Wa"ger\, n.

   {Wagering, or gambling}, {contract}. A contract which is of
      the nature of wager. Contracts of this nature include
      various common forms of valid commercial contracts, as
      contracts of insurance, contracts dealing in futures,
      options, etc. Other wagering contracts and bets are now
      generally made illegal by statute against betting and
      gambling, and wagering has in many cases been made a
      criminal offence. Wages \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.

Source : WordNet®

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}]