wager

English

Part or all of this entry has been imported from the 1913 edition of Webster’s Dictionary, which is now free of copyright and hence in the public domain. The imported definitions may be significantly out of date, and any more recent senses may be completely missing.

Pronunciation

• Audio (US)

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• Rhymes: -eɪdʒə(r)

Etymology 1

From Anglo-Norman wageure, from Old Northern French wagier "to pledge" (compare Old French guagier, whence modern French gager). See also wage.

Noun

Wikipedia wager (plural wagers)

1. Something deposited, laid, or hazarded on the event of a contest or an unsettled question; a bet; a stake; a pledge.
2. A contract by which two parties or more agree that a certain sum of money, or other thing, shall be paid or delivered to one of them, on the happening or not happening of an uncertain event.
3. That on which bets are laid; the subject of a bet.

Translations

a stake; a pledge

• Basque: trabes (eu)
• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 賭 (cmn), 赌 (cmn) (dǔ)

• Esperanto: veto (eo)
• Finnish: panos (fi), veto (fi)
• French: mise (fr) f
• German: Wette (de) f
• Greek: στοίχημα (el) (stíhima) n

• Greenlandic: eqquiniut (kl)
• Hungarian: tét (hu)
• Italian: posta (f); puntata (f)
• Japanese: 賭け (ja) (かけ, kake)
• Portuguese: aposta (pt)
• Russian: ставка (ru) (stávka) f
• Spanish: apuesta (es) f
• Tagalog: taya (tl)

an agreement

• Dutch: weddenschap (nl) f
• Finnish: veto (fi), vedonlyönti (fi)
• French: pari (fr) m
• Hungarian: fogadás (hu)

• Italian: scommessa (f)
• Polish: zakład (pl) m
• Russian: пари (ru) (pári) n (indeclinable)

the subject of a bet

• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 賭注 (cmn), 赌注 (cmn) (dǔzhù)

• Dutch: inzet (nl) m
• Finnish: vedonlyöntikohde (fi)
• Greek: στοίχημα (el) (stoíchima) n

• Italian: evento su cui si scommette (see: scommettere)
• Japanese: 賭け (ja) (かけ, kake)
• Russian: ставка (ru) (stávka) f
• Spanish: apuesta (es) f

Verb

wager (third-person singular simple present wagers, present participle wagering, simple past and past participle wagered)

1. (transitive) To bet something; to put it up as collateral

   I'd wager my boots on it.

2. (intransitive, figuratively) To daresay.

   I'll wager that Johnson knows something about all this.

Translations

put up as collateral

• Dutch: wedden, weddenschap afsluiten, verwedden
• Esperanto: veti (eo)
• Finnish: lyödä vetoa (fi)

• French: parier (fr)
• Portuguese: apostar (pt)
• Spanish: apostar (es)

Synonyms

• (to daresay) lay odds

Etymology 2

From the verb, to wage + -er.

Noun

wager (plural wagers)

1. Agent noun of wage; one who wages.
   • 1912, Pocumtack Valley Memorial Association, History and Proceedings of the Pocumtuck Valley Memorial Association, p. 65:

     They were wagers of warfare against the wilderness and the Indians, and founders of families and towns.

   • 1957, Elsa Maxwell, How to Do It; Or, The Lively Art of Entertaining, p. 7:

     Hatshepsut was no wager of wars, no bloodstained conqueror.