English▸ noun (also wages) a fixed regular payment earned for work or services, typically paid on a daily or weekly basis. Compare with salary:
we were struggling to get better wages
an income of less than half the average wage.
▪ (wages) Economics the part of total production that is the return to labour as earned income as distinct from the remuneration received by capital as unearned income.
▪ the result or effect of doing something considered wrong or unwise:
disasters are the wages of sin.
▸ verb [with object] carry on (a war or campaign):
it is necessary to destroy their capacity to wage war.