gage

Etymology 1

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.

verb

1. To bind (someone) by pledge or security; to engage.
2. (archaic) To bet or wager (something).
3. (obsolete) To deposit or give (something) as a pledge or security; to pawn.

noun

1. Something, such as a glove or other pledge, thrown down as a challenge to combat (now usually figurative).
   The gage was down for a duel that would split the Democratic party and ensure the election of a Republican president in 1860. 1988, James McPherson, Battle Cry for Freedom, Oxford, published 2003, page 166
2. (obsolete) Something valuable deposited as a guarantee or pledge; security, ransom.

Etymology 2

See gauge.

noun

1. (US) Alternative spelling of gauge (“a measure, instrument for measuring, etc.”)

verb

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

Etymology 3

Back-formation from greengage.

noun

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

Etymology 4

noun

1. (slang, dated) Marijuana
2. (archaic, UK, slang) A pint pot.
3. (archaic, UK, slang, metonymically) A drink.
4. (archaic, UK, slang) A tobacco pipe.
   Troll us a stave, my antediluvian file, and in the mean time tip me a gage of fogus, Jerry 1834, William Harrison Ainsworth, Rookwood, volume 2, page 353
5. (archaic, UK, slang) A chamberpot.
6. (archaic, UK, slang) A small quantity of anything.
   GAGE, a small quantity of anything; as “a gage of tobacco,” meaning a. pipeful; “a gage of gin,” a glassful. 1864, John Camden Hotten, The Slang Dictionary, page 140
7. (obsolete, UK, thieves' cant) A quart pot.
   I bowse no lage, but a whole gage / Of this I'll bowse to you. 1641–42, Richard Brome, A Jovial Crew, or the Merry Beggars, act 2
   Harry. To pay, Moll, for I must hike. Moll. Did you call me, Master? Harry. Ay, to pay, in a Whiff. Moll. Let me see. There's a Grunter's Gig, is a Si-Buxom; two Cat's Heads, a Win; a Double Gage of Rum Slobber, is Thrums; and a Quartern of Max, is three Megs: — That makes a Traveller all but a Meg. Harry. Here, take your Traveller, and tip the Meg to the Kinchin. 1747, Helen Berry, anonymous quotee, The Life and Character of Moll King, late mistress of King's Coffee House in Covent Garden, quoted in "Rethinking Politeness in Eighteenth-Century England", Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, published 2001, page 75, volume 11, series 6