\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.

\Wa"ger\, n. [OE. wager, wajour, OF. wagiere, or wageure,
E. gageure. See {Wage}, v. t.]
1. Something deposited, laid, or hazarded on the event of a
   contest or an unsettled question; a bet; a stake; a
   pledge.
         Besides these plates for horse races, the wagers may
         be as the persons please.             --Sir W.
                                               Temple.
         If any atheist can stake his soul for a wager
         against such an inexhaustible disproportion, let him
         never hereafter accuse others of credulity.
                                               --Bentley.
2. (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. --Bouvier.
Note: At common law a wager is considered as a legal contract
      which the courts must enforce unless it be on a subject
      contrary to public policy, or immoral, or tending to
      the detriment of the public, or affecting the interest,
      feelings, or character of a third person. In many of
      the United States an action can not be sustained upon
      any wager or bet. --Chitty. --Bouvier.
3. That on which bets are laid; the subject of a bet.
{Wager of battel}, or {Wager of battle} (O. Eng. Law), the
   giving of gage, or pledge, for trying a cause by single
   combat, formerly allowed in military, criminal, and civil
   causes. In writs of right, where the trial was by
   champions, the tenant produced his champion, who, by
   throwing down his glove as a gage, thus waged, or
   stipulated, battle with the champion of the demandant,
   who, by taking up the glove, accepted the challenge. The
   wager of battel, which has been long in disuse, was
   abolished in England in 1819, by a statute passed in
   consequence of a defendant's having waged his battle in a
   case which arose about that period. See {Battel}.
{Wager of law} (Law), the giving of gage, or sureties, by a
   defendant in an action of debt, that at a certain day
   assigned he would take a law, or oath, in open court, that
   he did not owe the debt, and at the same time bring with
   him eleven neighbors (called compurgators), who should
   avow upon their oaths that they believed in their
   consciences that he spoke the truth.
{Wager policy}. (Insurance Law) See under {Policy}.

\Wa"ger\, v. t. [imp. & p. p. {Wagered}; p. pr. & vb. n.
{Wagering}.]
To hazard on the issue of a contest, or on some question that
is to be decided, or on some casualty; to lay; to stake; to
bet.
      And wagered with him Pieces of gold 'gainst this which
      he wore.                                 --Shak.

\Wa"ger\, v. i.
To make a bet; to lay a wager.
      'T was merry when You wagered on your angling. --Shak.