gage
/ɡeɪd͡ʒ/
Word Rarity
Rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 3.22 in modern English
6
Scrabble Score
4
Letters
1
Syllables
3
Unique Chars
Meaning
noun
Something, such as a glove or other pledge, thrown down as a challenge to combat (now usually figurative).
Transitive verb
Example Sentences
- "Great debts / Wherein my time, sometimes too prodigal, / Hath left me gaged."
- "O doe not goe, this feaſt (I'le gage my life) / Is but a plot to trayne you to your ruine, / Be rul'd, you ſha'not goe."
- "A moiety competent / Was gaged by our king."
- "“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…"
- ""I'm nothing of the sort," exclaimed the MacQuibble, hurling down the gage of battle at once."
- "The gage was down for a duel that would split the Democratic party and ensure the election of a Republican president in 1860."
Etymology
From Middle English gage, from later Old French or early Middle French gager (verb), (also guagier in Old French) gage (noun), ultimately from Frankish *waddi, from Proto-Germanic *wadją (whence English wed). Doublet of wage, from the same origin through the Old Northern French variant wage. See also mortgage.
Origin
Word Breakdown
Usage
- Transitive verb
- Archaic
- Obsolete
- American usage
- Dated
- Slang
- Uncountable
- British usage