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Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
wager
I.noun
COLLOCATIONS FROM CORPUS
■ VERB
make
▪ Hubris, to have made the wager. ` Mr Quinn, your job is secure.
▪ Say you made your wager at odds of 40-1.
EXAMPLES FROM CORPUS
▪ For instance, on a question involving the law of wagers, there is generally no need to discuss what is a wager.
▪ He also happened to have a wager on the outcome of the football game.
▪ Hours before the announcement, large wagers were placed in favour of his son William becoming next king.
▪ It did not matter that her wager was only five dollars.
▪ Say you made your wager at odds of 40-1.
▪ Sherlock explained the wager, and the answer Summerlee had given us.
▪ Volunteering a wager was unprecedented, therefore highly suspicious.
▪ Wednesday midnight the wager is up.
II.verb
EXAMPLES FROM CORPUS
▪ And estimates are that players wager $ 8 billion a year at the tables, although no one knows for sure.
▪ Every year, a staggering £80m is wagered on this spectacular racing phenomenon.
▪ I'd wager that, if anything, people's tastes are getting more diverse these days than they used to be.
▪ Some one up there must have wagered a few bob on them for another Grand Slam.
▪ There may be considerable scepticism about Pascal's case for always wagering on the outsider if the odds are high enough.
The Collaborative International Dictionary
wager

wager \wa"ger\ (w[=a]"j[~e]r), n. [OE. wager, wajour, OF. wagiere, or wageure, F. 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.

    Wagering contract 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. [Webster 1913 Suppl.]

wager

wager \wa"ger\, v. t. [imp. & p. p. wagered (w[=a]"j[~e]rd); 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 eventuality; to lay; to stake; to bet.

And wagered with him Pieces of gold 'gainst this which he wore.
--Shak.

Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
wager

c.1300, wajour "a promise, a vow, something pledged or sworn to;" also "a bet, a wager; stakes, something laid down as a bet," from Anglo-French wageure, Old North French wagiere (Old French gagiere, Modern French gageure) "pledge, security," from wagier "to pledge" (see wage (n.)).

wager

c.1600 (intransitive); 1610s (transitive), from wager (n.). Related: Wagered; wagering.

Wiktionary
wager

Etymology 1 n. 1 Something deposited, laid, or hazarded on the event of a contest or an unsettled question; a bet; a stake; a pledge. 2 (context legal English) 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. vb. 1 (context transitive English) To bet something; to put it up as collateral 2 (context intransitive figuratively English) To suppose; to daresay. Etymology 2

n. agent noun of wage; one who wages.

WordNet
wager
  1. n. the act of gambling; "he did it on a bet" [syn: bet]

  2. the money risked on a gamble [syn: stake, stakes, bet]

  3. v. stake on the outcome of an issue; "I bet $100 on that new horse"; "She played all her money on the dark horse" [syn: bet, play]

  4. maintain with or as if with a bet; "I bet she will be there!" [syn: bet]

Wikipedia
Wager

Wager can refer to:

  • Gambling
  • A scientific wager
  • A legal wager under the Roman legal system
  • WAGR syndrome - a rare genetic syndrome

Usage examples of "wager".

Again he won, and we went the length of the street, Runt wagering nineteen dollars alce on the first card for ten consecutive times without losing a bet.

We began playing for five Louis the game, each player putting down the fifty Louis wagered.

When supper-time came and we were still playing, people began to think that the affair was getting serious, and Madame Saxe urged us to divide the wager.

Not that appearances could be trusted, but in this case Miss Mannering was prepared to wager her reputation that her benefactress was of unblemished character.

But if he had accepted her proffered wager that Bibbs would go to church with Mary Vertrees that morning, Mrs.

The gentleman who had brought the wonderful news, feeling angry, proposed a wager of one hundred louis.

About the same time a London banker had deposited the sum of twenty thousand guineas at the Bank of England, being ready to wager that sum that Eon was a woman.

I would have wagered a hundred to one that no one would recognize me there, as the man who got the tickets had assured me that it was a gathering of small tradesmen.

Some years before, a certain Carletti, an officer in the service of the court of Turin, had won from the Marquis a wager of two hundred and fifty sequins.

I wager that a quarter of the English peerage has visited Chatterford.

I felt certain that a man in a passion of jealousy would be quite confused, and I hoped his play would suffer accordingly, and that I should not have the mortification of losing a hundred louis to his superior play, though I won the fifty louis of the wager.

Carrie, evidently vexed that Lupin had not come in, did discuss it all the same, and wanted me to have a small wager with her to decide by the smell.

The ranks of dancers suddenly cleared to give an excellent view of Thady Boy Ballagh giving a spirited rendering of New World agility, flanked on one side by a nude Brazilian and on the other by an Archer, stripped to his netherstocks and crimson with shame and a violent determination to win the wager undoubtedly in the offing.

All Brandy understands is The Sky wishes to wager that Big Nig does not make his six, and Brandy Bottle Bates will be willing to bet his soul a couple of times over on Big Nig making his six, and figure he is getting the best of it, at that, as Brandy has great confidence in Nig.

When peasants wager at contests of skill, it is the winner who stays until he loses, be the game placques, single-bone draughts, wrestling, or Kimmi-on-the-pig.