Wager

Pronunciation

• Rhymes: -eɪdÊ’É™(r)

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

Noun

1. Something deposited, laid, or hazarded on the event of a contest or an unsettled question; a bet; a stake; a pledge.
• Sir W. TempleBesides 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.
• BentleyIf any atheist can stake his soul for a wager against such an inexhaustible disproportion, let him never hereafter accuse others of credulity.
2. (legal) 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.

Full definition of wager

Verb

1. (transitive) To bet something; to put it up as collateralI'd wager my boots on it.
2. (intransitive, figuratively) To daresay.I'll wager that Johnson knows something about all this.

Synonyms

• (to daresay) lay odds

From the verb, to wage + -er.

Noun

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.