wager

• POS: Noun, Verb (usu participle), Verb (transitive)
• HYPHEN: wa=ger

CIDE DICTIONARY

wager, n. [OE. wager, wajour, OF. wagiere, or wageure, F. gageure. See Wage, v. t.].

•  Something deposited, laid, or hazarded on the event of a contest or an unsettled question; a bet; a stake; a pledge.  [1913 Webster]

  "Besides these plates for horse races, the wagers may be as the persons please."  [1913 Webster]

  "If any atheist can stake his soul for a wager against such an inexhaustible disproportion, let him never hereafter accuse others of credulity."  [1913 Webster]
•  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.  [1913 Webster]

  " 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.  [1913 Webster]
•  That on which bets are laid; the subject of a bet.  [1913 Webster]

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, v. t. 

 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.  [1913 Webster]
"And wagered with him
Pieces of gold 'gainst this which he wore."  [1913 Webster]

wager, v. i. 

 To make a bet; to lay a wager.  [1913 Webster]
"'T was merry when
You wagered on your angling."  [1913 Webster]

OXFORD DICTIONARY

wager, n. & v.tr. & intr. = BET.

Idiom

wager of battle hist. an ancient form of trial by personal combat between the parties or their champions. wager of law hist. a form of trial in which the defendant was required to produce witnesses who would swear to his or her innocence.

Etymology

ME f. AF wageure f. wager (as WAGE)

THESAURUS

wager

adventure, ante, ante up, back, bet, bet on, blind bargain, book, borderline case, call, chance, chance it, chunk, contingency, cover, double contingency, fade, gamble, gamble on, game, guess, handbook, hazard, lay, lay a wager, lay down, make a bet, meet a bet, open question, parlay, pass, piece of guesswork, play, play against, plunge, pot, punt, put on, question, rely on fortune, risk, run a chance, run the risk, see, set, set at hazard, shot, sight-unseen transaction, stake, stand pat, take a chance, take a flier, take chances, tempt fortune, toss-up, touch and go, trust to chance, try the chance, undecided issue, venture

ROGET THESAURUS

wager

Chance

N chance, lot, fate, luck, good luck, mascot, speculation, venture, stake, game of chance, mere shot, random shot, blind bargain, leap in the dark, pig in a poke, fluke, potluck, faro bank, flyer, limit, uncertainty, uncertainty principle, Heisenberg's uncertainty principle, drawing lots, sortilegy, sortition, sortes, sortes Virgilianae, rouge et noir, hazard, ante, chuck-a-luck, crack-loo, craps, faro, roulette, pitch and toss, chuck, farthing, cup tossing, heads or tails cross and pile, poker-dice, wager, bet, betting, gambling, the turf, gaming house, gambling house, betting house, bucket shop, gambling joint, totalizator, totalizer, hell, betting ring, dice, dice box, gambler, gamester, man of the turf, adventurer, dicer, fortuitous, unintentional, unintended, accidental, not meant, undesigned, purposed, unpremeditated, unforeseen, uncontemplated, never thought of, random, indiscriminate, promiscuous, undirected, aimless, driftless, designless, purposeless, causeless, without purpose, possible, unforeseeable, unpredictable, chancy, risky, speculative, dicey, randomly, by chance, fortuitously, unpredictably, unforeseeably, casually, unintentionally, unwittingly, en passant, by the way, incidentally, as it may happen, at random, at a venture, at haphazard, acierta errando, dextro tempore, fearful concatenation of circumstances, fortuitous combination of circumstances, le jeu est le fils d'avarice et le pere du desespo, the happy combination of fortuitous circumstances, the fortuitous or casual concourse of atoms, God does not play dice with the universe, chance, indetermination, accident, fortune, hazard, hap, haphazard, chance medley, random, luck, raccroc, casualty, contingence, adventure, hit, fate, equal chance, lottery, tombola, toss up, turn of the table, turn of the cards, hazard of the die, chapter of accidents, fickle finger of fate, cast of the dice, throw of the dice, heads or tails, flip of a coin, wheel of Fortune, sortes, sortes Virgilianae, probability, possibility, odds, long odds, run of luck, accidentalness, main chance, odds on, favorable odds, contingency, dependence (uncertainty), situation (circumstance), statistics, theory of Probabilities, theory of Chances, bookmaking, assurance, speculation, gaming, casual, fortuitous, accidental, adventitious, causeless, incidental, contingent, uncaused, undetermined, indeterminate, random, statistical, possible, unintentional, by chance, accidentally, by accident, casually, perchance, for aught one knows, as good would have it, as bad would have it, as luck would have it, as ill-luck would have it, as chance would have it, as it may be, as it may chance, as it may turn up, as it may happen, as the case may be, grasps the skirts of happy chance, the accident of an accident, There but for the grace of God go I.

VB chance, stand a chance, toss up, cast lots, draw lots, leave to chance, trust to chance, leave to the chapter of accidents, trust to the chapter of accidents, tempt fortune, chance it, take one's chance, take a shot at it (attempt), run the risk, run the chance, incur the risk, incur the chance, encounter the risk, encounter the chance, stand the hazard of the die, speculate, try one's luck, set on a cast, raffle, put into a lottery, buy a pig in a poke, shuffle the cards, risk, venture, hazard, stake, ante, lay, lay a wager, make a bet, wager, bet, gamble, game, play for, play at chuck farthing, chance, hap, turn up, fall to one's lot, be one's fate, stumble on light upon, take one's chance.