wager

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See also: 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 The imported definitions may be significantly out of date, and any more recent senses may be completely missing.
(See the entry for “wager”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.)

Pronunciation

  • Lua error in Module:parameters at line 290: Parameter 1 should be a valid language or etymology language code; the value "GA" is not valid. See WT:LOL and WT:LOL/E. IPA(key): /ˈweɪdʒɚ/
  • Audio (US):(file)
  • Rhymes: -eɪdʒə(ɹ)

Etymology 1

From Anglo-Norman wageure, from Lua error in Module:parameters at line 290: Parameter 2 should be a valid language, etymology language or family code; the value "ONF." is not valid. See WT:LOL, WT:LOL/E and WT:LOF. (compare Old French guagier, whence modern French gager). See also wage.

Noun

English Wikipedia has an article on:
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.
    • 1842-43, Edgar Allan Poe, "The Mystery of Marie Roget"
      “This thicket was a singular, an exceedingly singular one. It was unusually dense. Within its naturally walled enclosure were three extraordinary stones, forming a seat with a back and footstool.[...] , whose boys were in the habit of closely examining the shrubberies about them in search of the bark of the sassafras. Would it be a rash wager – a wager of one thousand to one – that a day never passed over the heads of these boys without finding at least one of them ensconced in the umbrageous hall, and enthroned upon its natural throne? Those who would hesitate at such a wager, have either never been boys themselves, or have forgotten the boyish nature."
  2. That on which bets are laid; the subject of a bet.
  3. (law) 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.
    • (Can we date this quote by Sir W. Temple and provide title, author’s full name, and other details?)
      Besides these Plates, the Wagers may be as the Persons please among themselves, but the Horses must be evidenced by good Testimonies to have been bred in Ireland.
    • (Can we date this quote by Bentley and provide title, author’s full name, and other details?)
      If any atheist can stake his soul for a wager against such an inexhaustible disproportion, let him never hereafter accuse others of credulity.
  4. (law) An offer to make oath.
Derived terms
Translations

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 suppose; to dare say.
    I'll wager that Johnson knows something about all this.
Synonyms
Translations

Etymology 2

From the verb, 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, page 7:
      Hatshepsut was no wager of wars, no bloodstained conqueror.
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