English

Proper noun

Gage

1. A surname​.
2. A male given name, modern transferred use of the surname.
3. A female given name
4. A ghost town in New Mexico.
5. A town in Oklahoma.

German

Etymology

From French gage.

Pronunciation

• Rhymes: -aːʒə

Noun

Gage f ‎(genitive Gage, plural Gagen)

1. (of an artist) fee

Declension

English

Verb

gage ‎(third-person singular simple present gages, present participle gaging, simple past and past participle gaged)

1. (obsolete) To give or deposit as a pledge or security; to pawn.
   • Shakespeare

     A moiety competent / Was gaged by our king.

2. (archaic) To wager, to bet.
   • Ford

     This feast, I'll gage my life, / Is but a plot to train you to your ruin.

3. To bind by pledge, or security; to engage.
   • Shakespeare

     Great debts / Wherein my time, sometimes too prodigal, / Hath left me gaged.

Translations

Noun

gage ‎(plural gages)

1. Something, such as a glove or other pledge, thrown down as a challenge to combat (now usually figurative).
   • 1819, Walter Scott, Ivanhoe:

     “But it is enough that I challenge the trial by combat — there lies my gage.” She took her embroidered glove from her hand, and flung it down before the Grand Master with an air of mingled simplicity and dignity…

   • 1988, James McPherson, Battle Cry for Freedom, Oxford 2003, page 166:

     The gage was down for a duel that would split the Democratic party and ensure the election of a Republican president in 1860.

2. (obsolete) Something valuable deposited as a guarantee or pledge; security, ransom.
   • 1886, Henry James, The Princess Casamassima.

     [I]t seemed to create a sort of material link between the Princess and himself, and at the end of three months it almost appeared to him, not that the exquisite book was an intended present from his own hand, but that it had been placed in that hand by the most remarkable woman in Europe.... [T]he superior piece of work he had done after seeing her last, in the immediate heat of his emotion, turned into a kind of proof and gage, as if a ghost, in vanishing from sight, had left a palpable relic.

Translations

Etymology 2

See gauge.

Noun

gage ‎(plural gages)

1. US alternative spelling of gauge (a measure, instrument for measuring, etc.)

Verb

gage ‎(third-person singular simple present gages, present participle gaging, simple past and past participle gaged)

1. (US) Alternative spelling of gauge (to measure)

Usage notes

The spelling gage is encountered primarily in American English, but even there it is less common than the spelling gauge.

Translations

Etymology 3

Named after the Gage family of England, who imported the greengage from France.

Noun

gage ‎(plural gages)

1. A subspecies of plum, Prunus domestica subsp. italica.

Derived terms

Translations

Etymology 4

Noun

gage

1. (archaic, Britain, cant) A quart pot. [15th–19th c.]
   • 1641–42, Brome, Richard, A Jovial Crew, or the Merry Beggars, Act 2:

     I bowse no lage, but a whole gage / Of this I'll bowse to you.

2. (archaic, Britain, slang) A pint pot. [18th–19th c.c.]
3. (archaic, Britain, slang, by extension) A drink. [from 19th c.]
4. (archaic, Britain, slang) A tobacco pipe. [mid 17th–early 19th c.]
   • 1834, Ainsworth, William Harrison, Rookwood, volume 2, page 353:

     Troll us a stave, my antediluvian file, and in the mean time tip me a gage of fogus, Jerry;

5. (archaic, Britain, slang) A chamberpot. [19th c.]
6. (archaic, Britain, slang) A small quantity of anything. [19th c.]
7. (slang, dated) Marijuana
   • 1973, Pynchon, Thomas, Gravity's Rainbow:

     Black faces, white tablecloth, gleaming very sharp knives lined up by the saucers... tobacco and "gage" smoke richly blended, eye-reddening and tart as wine, yowzah gwine smoke a little ob dis hyah sheeit gib de wrinkles in mah brain a proccess!

French

Etymology

From Old French gage, gauge, guage, itself (possibly through a Vulgar Latin root *wadium from Frankish *waddi (a Germanic legal term, cognate with Old English wedd). Compare English wage, ultimately of the same source through the Anglo-Norman/Old Northern French variant wage.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ɡaʒ/
• Rhymes: -aʒ
• Homophones: gagent, gages
• Rhymes: -ɑʒ

Noun

gage m ‎(plural gages)

1. pledge, guarantee
2. (law, finance) deposit, security, guaranty (guarantee that debt will be paid; property relinquished to ensure this)
3. forfeit (something deposited as part of a game)
4. proof, evidence, assurance
5. (plural) wages, salary

Derived terms

• tueur à gages

Related terms

• gager

Verb

gage

1. first-person singular present indicative of gager
2. third-person singular present indicative of gager
3. first-person singular present subjunctive of gager
4. third-person singular present subjunctive of gager
5. second-person singular present imperative of gager

Old French

Alternative forms

• gaige
• guage
• wage

Noun

gage m ‎(oblique plural gages, nominative singular gages, nominative plural gage)

1. wage (regular remuneration)
2. (figuratively) payment
   • circa 1176, Chrétien de Troyes, Cligès:

     « Garz, fet il, ça leiroiz le gage
     de mon seignor que tu as mort [»]

     "Boy" said he "this will be payback
     for my lord that you killed."

Descendants

• English: gage, wage
• French: gage