The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48:

Wages \Wa"ges\ (w[=a]"j[e^]z), n. plural in termination, but
   singular in signification. [Plural of wage; cf. F. gages,
   pl., wages, hire. See Wage, n.]
   1. A compensation given to a hired person for services; price
      paid for labor; recompense; hire. See Wage, n., 2.
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            The wages of sin is death.            --Rom. vi. 23.
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   2. (Economics) The share of the annual product or national
      dividend which goes as a reward to labor, as distinct from
      the remuneration received by capital in its various forms.
      This economic or technical sense of the word wages is
      broader than the current sense, and includes not only
      amounts actually paid to laborers, but the remuneration
      obtained by those who sell the products of their own work,
      and the wages of superintendence or management, which are
      earned by skill in directing the work of others.
      [Webster 1913 Suppl.]

   Wages fund (Polit. Econ.), the aggregate capital existing
      at any time in any country, which theoretically is
      unconditionally destined to be paid out in wages. It was
      formerly held, by Mill and other political economists,
      that the average rate of wages in any country at any time
      depended upon the relation of the wages fund to the number
      of laborers. This theory has been greatly modified by the
      discovery of other conditions affecting wages, which it
      does not take into account. --Encyc. Brit.
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   Syn: See under Wage, n.
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