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Wager   Listen
noun
wager  n.  
1.
Something deposited, laid, or hazarded on the event of a contest or an unsettled question; a bet; a stake; a pledge. "Besides these plates for horse races, the wagers may be as the persons please." "If any atheist can stake his soul for a wager against such an inexhaustible disproportion, let him never hereafter accuse others of credulity."
2.
(Law) 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. Note: 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.
3.
That on which bets are laid; the subject of a bet.
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.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Wager" Quotes from Famous Books



... may perhaps have dreamed that he will die unless the country engages in a game of cross for his health. Then, if he has ever so little credit, you will see those who can best play at cross arrayed, village against village, in a beautiful field, and to increase the excitement, they will wager with each other their beaver skins and their necklaces of ...
— Indian Games • Andrew McFarland Davis

... the Hashimi vein[FN66] started out from between his eyes and throbbed: and he cried out to Masrur and said to him, "Fare thee forth to the house of Abu al-Hasan the Wag and see which of them is dead." So Masrur went out, running, and the Caliph said to the Lady Zubaydah, "Wilt thou lay me a wager?" And said she, "Yes, I will wager, and I say that Abu al-Hasan is dead." Rejoined the Caliph, "And I wager and say that none is dead save Nuzhat al-Fuad; and the stake between me and thee shall be the Garden of Pleasance[FN67] against thy palace ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton

... bone of 'em, these six weeks. I don't see how they've gone, for my part. I'd lay any wager there were two in the smoke-house when I took the last one out. If Mr. Didenhover was a little more like a weasel I ...
— Queechy, Volume I • Elizabeth Wetherell

... himself. In the house there were only two beds, in the same room. In one the husband and wife slept, in the other the brother and sister. The old people went and slept in the stable, giving up their bed to the prince. When the girl saw that the prince was asleep, she said to her brother: "I will wager that you do not know why the prince divided the capon among us in the manner he did." "Do you know? Tell me why." "He gave the head to our father, because he is the head of the family; the back ...
— Flowers from a Persian Garden and Other Papers • W. A. Clouston

... good as what one keeps to oneself," said she, and was quite satisfied with her day's work. When she went home the mouse inquired, "And what was this child christened?" "Half-done," answered the cat. "Half-done! What are you saying? I never heard the name in my life, I'll wager anything it is not ...
— Household Tales by Brothers Grimm • Grimm Brothers

... mountains, in the mountains, and I know The voice that shook our palaces—four hundred years ago: It is he that saith not 'Kismet'; it is he that knows not Fate; It is Richard, it is Raymond, it is Godfrey in the gate! It is he whose loss is laughter when he counts the wager worth, Put down your feet upon him, that our peace be on the earth." For he heard drums groaning and he heard guns jar, (Don John of Austria is going to the war.) Sudden and still—hurrah! Bolt from Iberia! Don John of ...
— Poems • G.K. Chesterton

... American aviators are here at last, and I'll wager it wasn't their fault that they didn't get here sooner! Now for a fight ...
— The Khaki Boys Over the Top - Doing and Daring for Uncle Sam • Gordon Bates

... goin' into a shop, instead of pullin' boats, eh? I'll wager you're a sailor who has given his captain ...
— Neal, the Miller - A Son of Liberty • James Otis

... Vivonne, my brother, laughed at him in society; he unceasingly outraged by his clumsiness his sister's sense of discretion. One day, in a gaming-house, seeing the table covered with gold, the Marshal exclaimed at the door: "I will wager that D'Aubigne is here, and makes all this display; it is a ...
— The Memoirs of Madame de Montespan, Complete • Madame La Marquise De Montespan

... and go to the Court of England, see what regard will there be paid to the old pedigree that deduces your descent from kings and conquerors. A scurril or obscene jest, an impudent carriage, a laced cloak, a handful of gold, and the readiness to wager it on a card, or a die, will better advance you at the Court of Charles, than your father's ancient name, and slavish devotion of blood and fortune to ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott

... has, for those who have the happy gift of realising literature, not much less than the effect of actually taking part in one, with no danger of headache or indigestion after, and without the risk of being playfully corked, or required to leap the table for a wager, or forced to extemporise sixteen stanzas standing on the mantelpiece. There must be some peculiar virtue in this, for, as is very well known, the usual dialogue leaves the reader more outside of it than almost any other kind ...
— Essays in English Literature, 1780-1860 • George Saintsbury

... pin-prick, and to put the mark upon the wall during the night, either with his own hand or with that of his housekeeper. If you examine among those documents which he took with him into his retreat I will lay you a wager that you find the seal with the ...
— The Return of Sherlock Holmes - Magazine Edition • Arthur Conan Doyle

... then broke my neck! There!—I said so! Was that a tree I knocked against? A hundred thousand bans and maledictions fall upon Mercury and Haas, the architect, who sent for me to look at it! and the scoundrels, too, who dug it up! I'll lay any wager that the boasted Mercury is nothing but some defaced and corroded bit of stone, without either nose or legs—some shapeless deformity like that little Hesus last year at Marienthal. Oh, you architects! you architects!—you are always finding antiquities everywhere. Luckily I had not ...
— The Man-Wolf and Other Tales • Emile Erckmann and Alexandre Chatrian

... money, I'll wager!' exclaimed Hewett, in an awed voice. 'I can believe it of Clem; if ever there was a downright bad 'un! Was she ...
— The Nether World • George Gissing

... well put on a good air before us still: for that have THEY learned best of us all at present! Had they however no one to see them, I wager that with them also the bad ...
— Thus Spake Zarathustra - A Book for All and None • Friedrich Nietzsche

... business of an inferior class of stockbroker, who is not a member of an official exchange and conducts speculative operations for his clients, who deposit a margin or cover. The operations consist, as a rule, of a simple bet or wager between the broker and client, no pretence of an actual purchase or sale being attempted. The term is sometimes, though loosely and wrongfully, applied to [v.04 p.0666] all stockbrokers who are not members of the recognized local exchange. The origin of the word is American. According to the ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 3 - "Brescia" to "Bulgaria" • Various

... pick and choose thy fare! I wager, if the maiden there above Had given thee but a glance, thou'dst be aflame. I love it not, this folk, and yet I know That what disfigures it, is our own work; We lame them, and are angry when they limp, And yet, withal, this wandering shepherd race Has ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VI. • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke

... inclosing the west side of the grounds, existed on the bank of the Kensington Canal until it was washed down by a very high tide. This new or square mansion remained unfinished and unoccupied for several years. In 1724 it belonged to Henry Arundel, Esq. and on the 24th May, 1743, Admiral Sir Charles Wager, a distinguished naval officer, died here, and was buried in Westminster Abbey. After passing through several hands, Stanley Grove became the property of Miss Southwell, afterwards the wife of Sir James Eyre, Lord Chief ...
— A Walk from London to Fulham • Thomas Crofton Croker

... to wager imaginary sums to any extent he might have cared to name, but as my actual worldly wealth at that moment consisted of one penny, and my expectations were limited to the shilling pocket-money which ...
— Tales of St. Austin's • P. G. Wodehouse

... twenty-four hours' notice; yet if you met him by accident riding in the Park, he was sure to tell you he had been mounted by a friend; if you saw him driving a team—and few could handle four horses in a crowded thoroughfare with more neatness and precision—you might safely wager it was from the box of another ...
— M. or N. "Similia similibus curantur." • G.J. Whyte-Melville

... little scholar was the first to begin the quarrel—I mind me of it now—at Lockit's. I always hated that fellow Mohun. What was the real cause, of the quarrel betwixt him and poor Frank? I would wager 'twas a woman." ...
— The History of Henry Esmond, Esq. • W. M. Thackeray

... reassuring. However, I shall soon determine." He arose. "I'll call for you at seven, and I'll wager right now that your fears are groundless. Prepare to see me return with a ring through the nose of ...
— The Silver Horde • Rex Beach

... end of the table. But trifler though he was, he thought it cruel to the girl—a damnable shame—and pulled himself together to prevent what mischief he might. At the same time he felt curious to see her, curious to learn if these many months of seclusion had fulfilled the Collector's wager that Ruth Josselin would grow to be the loveliest woman in America. At Manasseh's announcement he faced about, and, with a gasp, clutched at the back of ...
— Lady Good-for-Nothing • A. T. Quiller-Couch

... with scant information," says Doctor Heath, "and you can't have been here long, but I'll wager ...
— The Diamond Coterie • Lawrence L. Lynch

... weasel, he must still reassure himself with the tones of his own voice; he must play his part to exaggeration, he must out-Herod Herod, insult all that was respectable, and brave all that was formidable, in a kind of desperate wager with himself. ...
— The Ebb-Tide - A Trio And Quartette • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne

... two girls looked in their new evening gowns. They had made them themselves, in consequence of a wager with Fred, who had challenged them to combine ...
— The Daughters of Danaus • Mona Caird

... you bet?" Such was his astonishing rejoinder—I say astonishing, because nothing had been said regarding a wager and certainly nothing had been ...
— Fibble, D. D. • Irvin Shrewsbury Cobb

... a wager with myself that I'd have a pretty speech from you before I went out of your life"—she checked a laugh, and concluded thrillingly—"forever! I leave ...
— The Guest of Quesnay • Booth Tarkington

... he ordered his men, "and search the roads hereabouts. I'll wager a horse to a horseshoe that you will ...
— The Trampling of the Lilies • Rafael Sabatini

... a wager that he can walk faster than B or C. A can walk half as fast again as B, and C is only an indifferent walker. Find how far, ...
— Literary Lapses • Stephen Leacock

... visualise old New York as hard as I have tried. But I will wager that, like myself, you have been unable to conjure up more than a nebulous and tenuous vision,—a modern New York's shadow, the ghostly skeleton of our city as it appears today. For instance, when you have thought of old Washington Square, you have probably thought ...
— Greenwich Village • Anna Alice Chapin

... of unreasonable happiness are the most enviable no doubt, for there is neither gall nor satiety in the reaction. All this is as enchanting as—well, as a woman's promise. What lies beyond? Illiterate and mercenary Spaniards, vicious natives, and boundless ennui, one may safely wager. But if all California is as beautiful as this, no man that has spent a winter in Sitka ...
— Rezanov • Gertrude Atherton

... his forehead; "this reminds me, young ladies, that you kept on rubbing your eyes last evening, and pretending to be half asleep. I wager, it was all to send me away the sooner, and to get to your dream ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue

... it; don't let me keep you from it. Some charmer, I'll wager. Here I pour all my adventures into your ear, and I on my side never so much as get a hint of yours. ...
— The Lure of the Mask • Harold MacGrath

... upon the knight. But the final words of the Don contain a moral apposite to so many other important situations, that they must not be omitted here. 'Apostare, replico Sancho, que pensa vuestra merced que yo he hecho de mi persona alguna cosa que no deba.' 'I will lay a wager,' replied Sancho, 'that your worship thinks that I have &c.' The brief, but memorable, answer was: 'Peor es meneallo, amigo Sancho,' which, as no translation could do justice to it, must be left as it ...
— Tracks of a Rolling Stone • Henry J. Coke

... Tema," said Lucian Jeter quietly. "And make no mistake about it; when we take off for the stratosphere we're going to encounter strange things. Nobody can tell me that Kress' plane actually flew three weeks! And where did it come down? Why didn't Kress use the parachute ball? Where is it? I'll wager we'll find answers to plenty of ...
— Lords of the Stratosphere • Arthur J. Burks

... He, he, he, he, a Curse of your fleering Jests—Yet, however ill I succeeded, I'll venture the same Wager, she does not value thee a spoonful of Snuff—Nay more, though you enjoyn'd her Silence to me, you'll never make her speak to the Purpose ...
— The Busie Body • Susanna Centlivre

... use, it was written consciously for practice. It was not so much that I wished to be an author (though I wished that too) as that I had vowed that I would learn to write. That was a proficiency that tempted me; and I practised to acquire it, as men learn to whittle, in a wager with myself. Description was the principal field of my exercise; for to any one with senses there is always something worth describing, and town and country are but one continuous subject. But I worked in other ways ...
— Memories and Portraits • Robert Louis Stevenson

... Gentile, instead of keeping decently remote from Salt Lake City, as General Johnston had done, had marched his troops into the very stronghold of Zion, despite all threats of armed opposition, and in the face of a specific offer from one Prophet, Seer, and Revelator to wager him a large sum of money that his forces would never cross the River Jordan. To this fair offer, so reports ran, the Gentile officer had replied that he would cross the Jordan if hell yawned below it; that he had thereupon viciously pulled the ends of a grizzled, ...
— The Lions of the Lord - A Tale of the Old West • Harry Leon Wilson

... you should be in such pressing need of so large a sum must mean that you have been drawn into some deplorable speculation! I will wager that you invested in those ...
— Messengers of Evil - Being a Further Account of the Lures and Devices of Fantomas • Pierre Souvestre

... "south," we are reminded of a good story of Martin Van Buren. It is said that it was as difficult to get a direct answer from him as from Bismarck or Gladstone. Two friends were going up with him one day on a river boat and one made a wager with the other that a direct answer could not be secured on any question from the astute statesman. They approached the ex-president and one of them said, "Mr. Van Buren, my friend and I have had a little discussion; ...
— The Hudson - Three Centuries of History, Romance and Invention • Wallace Bruce

... against their sides urged the horses on. Men were shouting and cursing, and trying to pull clear of the Band which was being chased by the Drum-Horse whose rider had fallen forward and seemed to be spurring for a wager. ...
— Indian Tales • Rudyard Kipling

... painting portraits with a stencil; Gainsborough was immortalizing a hat; Doctor Johnson was waiting in the entry of Lord Chesterfield's mansion with the prospectus of a dictionary; and pretty Kitty Fisher had kicked the hat off the head of the Prince of Wales on a wager. ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 4 (of 14) - Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Painters • Elbert Hubbard

... that something took place yesterday at Montmartre." This was told me in the centre of the city, in the Rue de la Grange-Bateliere. Truly there are in Paris persons marvellously apathetic and ignorant. I would wager not a little that by searching in the retired quarters, some might be found who believe they are still governed by Napoleon III., and have never heard of the war with Prussia, except ...
— Paris under the Commune • John Leighton

... the idle crowd, intent on a new excitement, came surging up like waves. In such a whirlpool of tossing arms and shoving elbows, he who was small of stature and short of breath stood a scanty chance of getting close enough to the crier's stand to have his wager recorded. Such, at least, was the fate of a gray but dignified little man, who struggled vainly—even with risk to his long ...
— A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis

... pretty well," said the Pathfinder, laughing; "though pale-face eyes and red-skin eyes are as different as human spy-glasses. I would wager, with the Sergeant's daughter here, a horn of powder against a wampum-belt for her girdle, that her father's rijiment should march by this embankment of ours and never find out the fraud! But if the Mingoes actually get down into the bed of the river where Jasper ...
— The Pathfinder - The Inland Sea • James Fenimore Cooper

... by, I should have deemed it safe, at the moment, to stake my life. The next moment, however, as the surrounding flood of moral uncleanness surged over their footsteps, I would not have staked a spike of thistle-down on the same wager. Yet the miracle was within the scope of Providence, which is equally wise and equally beneficent (even to those poor girls, though I acknowledge the fact without the remotest comprehension of the mode of it), whether they were pure or what we fellow-sinners ...
— Our Old Home - A Series of English Sketches • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... out all day, and we shall see her paddling back before noon, I'll wager anything," said Charlie; and the rest so strongly inclined to his opinion that they resigned themselves to the loss of the little queen of the revels, sure that it would ...
— Eight Cousins • Louisa M. Alcott

... all—duller. For contentment, I'll wager against any farmhand the old woman who sells apples at the corner. She polishes them on her apron with—with spit. There is an Italian who peddles ice from a handcart on our street, and he never sees me ...
— Chimney-Pot Papers • Charles S. Brooks

... only because of my boyish freaks that I knew the easiest way to reach the summit of the rock. One day I had laid a wager with Wilfred that I could climb to its summit, and so I had carefully examined it when the tide was low, and after once climbing it, I had often gone thither to hunt for the nests ...
— Roger Trewinion • Joseph Hocking

... some keen questioning of the motives which had made her beg them not to pursue this man. But Charles Merchant was only interested in what the fellow had said and done when he talked with her. "He was just like a man out of a book," said the girl in conclusion, "and I'll wager that he's been raised on romances. He had the face for it, ...
— Way of the Lawless • Max Brand

... will become transfigured Into an angel, such as they say she is; And they will see her flying through the air, So bright that she will dim the noonday sun; 395 Showering down blessings in the shape of comfits. This, trust a priest, is just the sort of thing Swine will believe. I'll wager you will see them Climbing upon the thatch of their low sties, With pieces of smoked glass, to watch her sail 400 Among the clouds, and some will hold the flaps Of one another's ears between their teeth, To catch the coming hail of comfits in. You, Purganax, ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley

... rogue! don't have him, chick. Bet a wager i'n't worth two shillings; and that will go for powder and pomatum; hate a plaistered pate; commonly a numscull: love a ...
— Cecilia vol. 3 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)

... I'll wager that Sultan Achmed, poor fellow! felt far less contented when he rose from his gorgeous and luxurious sofa, though the tables beside it were piled high with fruits and sweetmeats, and two hundred odalisks danced ...
— Halil the Pedlar - A Tale of Old Stambul • Mr Jkai

... seized him. "What would the girl whom Jim Daly loves, if there is one, say? She has never given him up, I wager." ...
— The Law-Breakers and Other Stories • Robert Grant

... freight to Fairview on boards, shingles, furnishings, and so on; rent on donkeys to do the packing, dishes, and pantry boxes, for everything will have to be kept in tin boxes. Then you'll have to hire a mason to put in the fireplace. You'll need axes, saws, and tools. I'll wager it won't cost a cent less than two hundred dollars, and great loads of ...
— Buffalo Roost • F. H. Cheley

... put in Gordon quietly, "but your notion is right. It's exactly what Leyden is counting on, I'll wager ...
— Gold Out of Celebes • Aylward Edward Dingle

... But you'd better learn first what men say about men. It may not make you happier, but it will make you wiser, and wisdom ranks high in heaven: Gabriel, Raphael, Michael,—'tis the second person in that archangelic trinity. Did you ever read Shakspeare? No, of course not; and yet I'll wager you have been hankering after the Bhagavat Ghita, and trying to get a copy of the illustrious Trismegistan Gimander! Don't blush,—you're not the first young man who has made an a—ahem—made a mistake. Fie! Learn men, Clarian, and then you ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 32, June, 1860 • Various

... "go your own way, Polson, since go you will. But I wouldn't mind betting the sailorman's favourite wager—a farthing's worth of silver spoons—that before another year has passed over your head you will alter your tune. Take care that you do not defer the alteration until it is too late and the mischief ...
— Overdue - The Story of a Missing Ship • Harry Collingwood

... half a crown worth of resolution! Parole d'honneur! I would lay a wager he does not speak ...
— Ten Years Later - Chapters 1-104 • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... know just at this minute, but I'll wager wherever she is, she's doing good to somebody, or finishing up some fellow's neglected job. Why? Ain't scared of 'Lady ...
— Jessica, the Heiress • Evelyn Raymond

... a good bit of sport," said he. "It reminds me of old times, when we chaps used to ride steers for a wager. I'm a little out of practice now; but I hope you ...
— Lady Betty Across the Water • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson

... laugh, "I feel that glad to see everything, even to the chickens, just as we left them, that I wouldn't object to asking the President of the United States to breakfast. You ain't from around here, are you?" she asked, looking at the boys. "I thought not. And you're hungry, I'll wager," she said, as she bustled away with the little girl tugging at her skirts, not waiting for the boys to disaffirm, as they most assuredly would have done had a chance been given them, for they were not in the least hungry. But then, what was a cold luncheon taken from a bicycle basket ...
— Three Young Knights • Annie Hamilton Donnell

... Tillman. The labouring man was Day, from the same root as Ger. Dienen, to serve. It persists in "dairy" and perhaps in the puzzling name Doubleday (? doing two men's work). A similar meaning is contained in the names Swain, Hind, for earlier Hine (Chapter III), Tasker, Mann. But a Wager was a mercenary soldier. The mower has given us the names Mather (cf. aftermath), and Mawer, while Fenner is sometimes for Old Fr. feneur, haymaker (Lat. foenum, hay). For mower we also find the latinized messor, whence Messer. Whether the Ridler and the Sivier made, ...
— The Romance of Names • Ernest Weekley

... called his attention to the fact; and I'll wager he became unconscious of it again as soon as ...
— The Hermit and the Wild Woman and Other Stories • Edith Wharton

... sand in place; but, alas, "all men have not faith," and where the historian wrote Hudsonia tomentosa the antipathetic compositor set up Hudsonia tormentosa. That compositor was a Cape Cod man,—I would wager a dinner upon it. "Thus the whirligig of time brings in his revenges," I hear him mutter, as he slips the superfluous ...
— The Foot-path Way • Bradford Torrey

... legislator! In war contending, by the wager of battle, for the independence of his country, and for the freedom of the human race; ever manifesting amidst its horrors, by precept and example, his reverence for the laws of peace and the tenderest sympathies of humanity: ...
— Washington's Birthday • Various

... Ojibwa of mixed blood, present interpreter at White Earth Agency, Minnesota, gave me his experience with a J[)e]ssakk[-i]d, at Leech Lake, Minnesota, about the year 1858. The reports of his wonderful performances had reached the agency, and as Beaulieu had no faith in jugglers, he offered to wager $100, a large sum, then and there, against goods of equal value, that the juggler could not perform satisfactorily one of the tricks of his repertoire to be selected by him (Beaulieu) in the presence of himself and a committee ...
— Seventh Annual Report • Various

... struggle for supremacy when—by a rarely fortunate chance —I am alone in my armchair waiting for Adolphe. One, I would wager, comes from Eugene Delacroix's Faust which I have on my table. Mephistopheles speaks, that terrible aide who guides the swords so dexterously. He leaves the engraving, and places himself diabolically before me, grinning through the hole which the great artist ...
— Petty Troubles of Married Life, Second Part • Honore de Balzac

... Why, that is as easy said As any three short words; takes no more breath To say, "I hate you." What, sir, have I lived Three times four weeks your wedded loyal wife, And do not know your follies? I will wager (If I could trap his countship into this!) The rarest kisses I know how to give Against the turquoise, that within a month You'll grow so jealous—and without a cause, Or with a reason thin as window glass— That you will ...
— Standard Selections • Various

... the river Thames, in England, once laid a wager that he and his dog would leap from the centre arch of Westminster Bridge, and land at Lambeth within a minute of each other. He jumped off first, and the dog immediately followed; but as he was not in the secret, and fearing that his ...
— Stories about Animals: with Pictures to Match • Francis C. Woodworth

... natural thoughts, and such, no doubt, as would actually pass through the mind of the young lady, in the candour of desolation; but the mechanical iteration of her mode of putting them renders them irresistibly ludicrous. It reminds us of the wager laid by the poor queen in the play of Richard the Second, when she overhears the ...
— Stories from the Italian Poets: With Lives of the Writers, Volume 1 • Leigh Hunt

... "I'll wager my dog-whip against a pair of moccasins," said Sam, "that I know where a good part of the time will be spent if a couple of young gentlemen friends of mine can have their ...
— Winter Adventures of Three Boys • Egerton R. Young

... hook; then I lay, face downward, on the grass, and worked myself slowly forward until I could see the middle of the stream; then quietly raising my pole, I gave my grasshopper a good swing, as if he had made a wager to jump over the stream at its widest part. But as he certainly would have failed in such an ambitious endeavor, especially if he had been caught by a puff of wind, I let him come down upon the surface of the water, a little beyond the middle of the brook. Grasshoppers ...
— Amos Kilbright; His Adscititious Experiences • Frank R. Stockton

... they sat they could get a glimpse of the main stream across the island that separated them; and just then a wager-boat flashed into view, the rower—a short, stout figure—splashing badly and rolling a good deal, but working his hardest. The Rat stood up and hailed him, but Toad—for it was he—shook his head and settled ...
— The Wind in the Willows • Kenneth Grahame

... the agony. The case was a particularly bad one, and he didn't mind admitting that the patient was particularly intractable and doubting. Optimism had much to do with a recovery in most cases of illness, and optimism was here lacking. But he would wager a box of cigars that the patient was on his feet again within two weeks. The wager was taken with great promptness, and then the patient was loaded into a cab and sent ...
— The Wolf's Long Howl • Stanley Waterloo

... wor as nice a young lass as yo'll see In a day's march, aw'll wager mi hat; But yo know unless fowk's dispositions agree, Tho' they're bonny,—noa matter ...
— Yorkshire Lyrics • John Hartley

... stood; then, as my guide indicated with a wave of his hand, flowed to the east and again to the south. It extended much farther to the west and north, and from what I have since learned from the natives, rises between the head of the Invich and Wager rivers, and is about ninety-five miles in length. To the south and west of where we stood it passed over a broad stony portage, and beyond that swelled out, as do most of the rivers in this country, into a series of ...
— Schwatka's Search • William H. Gilder

... continued in the same situation, and confirmed me still more in my opinion. I proposed the wager a second time; it was ...
— Stories to Read or Tell from Fairy Tales and Folklore • Laure Claire Foucher

... southern institutions! What mockery, to talk of pecuniary intercourse between a slave and his master! The slave himself, with all he is and has, is an article of merchandise. What can he owe his master?—A rustic may lay a wager with his mule, and give the creature the peck of oats which he had permitted it to win. But who in sober earnest would call this a ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society

... (I'll wager you dashed right down to the Woman's Exchange and got towels! Aren't you glad V. is such a nice, easy letter ...
— Jane Journeys On • Ruth Comfort Mitchell

... The more distinguished the opinion I get the more my patient will have to pay for it, and he can't afford to pay a tin dollar. At the same time—By George! There's Leaver! I heard the other day that Leaver was at a sanitorium not a hundred miles away,—there for a rest. I'll wager he's there with a patient for a few days—at a good big price a day. Leaver never rests. He's made of steel wires. I believe I'll have him up on the long-distance and see if I can't ...
— Mrs. Red Pepper • Grace S. Richmond

... To lay a wager! It was an insult! Did he think her acquaintance was to be bought for a sum of money? It would not be long before he found out his mistake. And what a sum! Ten pounds! It was ridiculous! What man would spend ...
— Sally Bishop - A Romance • E. Temple Thurston

... the South; most of his mental efforts run through one narrow channel; his life as a man and a citizen, many of his financial activities, and all of his political activities are impassably limited by the ever present "Negro question." I am sure it would be safe to wager that no group of Southern white men could get together and talk for sixty minutes without bringing up the "race question." If a Northern white man happened to be in the group, the time could be safely cut to thirty minutes. In ...
— The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man • James Weldon Johnson

... protect my wounded head from the sun. In this plight I committed myself to the sea, first supplicating, on my knees, a Divine blessing on my undertaking; but doubting whether I should ever reach the opposite Key. Being, however, an excellent swimmer, having before swum nearly 2 miles on a wager, I reached the opposite Key without any other injury than the galling my neck with the cord; and with much less fatigue than I could have supposed. This Key was much of the description of the last, but smaller. I made but little pause, continuing my course South Westerly across ...
— Narrative of the shipwreck of the brig Betsey, of Wiscasset, Maine, and murder of five of her crew, by pirates, • Daniel Collins

... seldom valued. Ask a high price and people think that the commodity is precious. A man goes into a fair, for a wager, and he carries with him a try full of gold watches and offers to sell them for a farthing apiece, and nobody will buy them. It does not, I hope, degrade the subject, if I say Jesus Christ comes into the market-place of the world with His hands full of the gifts which His pierced hands have ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Isaiah and Jeremiah • Alexander Maclaren

... both Kate and Fanny were silent for a moment; then Kate said: "It was Julia, I know it was. Did you ever notice how much alike their voices are? And, besides, I once heard Julia lay a wager with Mr. Raymond that she could imitate her sister's voice so exactly that one, not seeing ...
— Tempest and Sunshine • Mary J. Holmes

... inducement, the desire of gain, to make a large crop, the desire is increased by that spirit of gambling, so common at the south. It is very common to bet on the issue of a crop. A. lays a wager that, from a given number of hands, he will make more cotton than B. The wager is accepted, and then begins the contest; and who bears the burden of it? How many tears, yea, how many broken constitutions, and premature deaths, have been the effect of this spirit? From the desperate energy ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society

... am absolutely obsessed by the miracle which has turned the invaders back from the walls of Paris. I cannot get over the wonder of it. In the light of the sudden, unexpected pause in that great push I have moments of believing that almost anything can happen. I'll wager you know more about it on your side of the great pond than we do here ...
— On the Edge of the War Zone - From the Battle of the Marne to the Entrance of the Stars and Stripes • Mildred Aldrich

... who bet on the Countess Anne Voronzoff, daughter of the Vice-Chancellor of the Empire, and bride to Count Strogonoff, who was the plainest of the three and at the time the most innocent and childlike, won the wager. The bet was wisely laid; for she was likely to be ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various

... for instance," persisted Eve, absolutely refusing to be silenced. "I would wager a box of the best kid gloves either one of you would marry him to-morrow, if he were to ask you, if he hadn't a penny in ...
— Daisy Brooks - A Perilous Love • Laura Jean Libbey

... o'clock in the morning. Candide, in listening to all their adventures, was reminded of what the old woman had said to him in their voyage to Buenos Ayres, and of her wager that there was not a person on board the ship but had met with very great misfortunes. He dreamed of Pangloss at every adventure told ...
— Candide • Voltaire

... Honor. I wager my gown that most of the chasseurs are lying under the table by this time, although by the noise they make it must be allowed there are some burly fellows upon their legs yet, who keep the wine flowing ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby

... and saved some of those whom he had overset. What must a man of so much feeling have suffered at being forced to do his duty so well as he has done! I remember hearing such another humane being, that brave old admiral Sir Charles Wager, say, that in his life be had ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole

... A bearskin to a furrier sold, Of which the bear was living still, But which they presently would kill— At least they said they would. And, if their word was good, It was a king of bears—an Ursa Major— The biggest bear beneath the sun. Its skin, the chaps would wager, Was cheap at double cost; 'Twould make one laugh at frost— And make two robes as well as one. Old Dindenaut,[25] in sheep who dealt, Less prized his sheep, than they their pelt— (In their account 'twas theirs, But in his own, the bears.) By bargain struck ...
— The Fables of La Fontaine - A New Edition, With Notes • Jean de La Fontaine

... evident that you don't keep up. We're just the same old stick-in-the-muds. 'Lupie, how did you guess? I'll wager you never see ...
— Sleeping Fires • Gertrude Atherton

... wagon and went on a spree, forgetting all about them, for weeks. I had left home firm in the resolve to not touch a drop of liquor under any circumstances, and so thoroughly did I believe that I would not, that I would have staked my soul on a wager that I would keep sober. But the sight of a saloon, or of some person with whom I had been on a drunk, or even an empty beer keg, would rouse my appetite to such an extent that I gave up all thoughts of sobriety and wanted ...
— Fifteen Years in Hell • Luther Benson

... men's running for a wager. A very apt similitude to set before the eyes of the saints of the Lord. "Know you not that they which run in a race, run all, but one receiveth the prize? So run, that ye may obtain." That is, 'Do not only ...
— The Heavenly Footman • John Bunyan

... seem to have cheered you much. I wager he's told you what he thinks of you, tossing to the winds all the beautiful health and spirits of the summer! When are you to be married? I must tell him to bully you as—as my dear love is bullying me! Has Doctor Ledyard growled at you? ...
— The Place Beyond the Winds • Harriet T. Comstock

... you think that I am no archer, I shall slay the noblest of that herd at a single shot, and I'll wager twenty marks upon ...
— A Treasury of Heroes and Heroines - A Record of High Endeavour and Strange Adventure from 500 B.C. to 1920 A.D. • Clayton Edwards

... said Will, "The clock at Jersey, near the mill, The very image of this present, With which I won the wager pleasant?" Will ended with a knowing wink; Tom scratched his head and tried to think. "Sir, begging your pardon for inquiring," The landlord said with grin admiring, ...
— The Universal Reciter - 81 Choice Pieces of Rare Poetical Gems • Various

... interjected dogmatically, "If you have such a beautiful planet for your homeworld, why in the name of the gods of intellect don't you go down there and enjoy it? I'll wager you haven't been out in the natural beauty and fine cities you spoke of since you started working here ...
— The Dueling Machine • Benjamin William Bova

... thought seems to please you! You want to see me discomfited and defeated. Very well; you can drop me right here if you like, but I'll wager something handsome that you'll regret your skepticism all the rest of your days. Resistance to the course of events marked by the stars is bound to result in confusion. And here's another striking coincidence: You mentioned casually that Isabel spoke of buried treasure in the far north. ...
— Blacksheep! Blacksheep! • Meredith Nicholson

... call upon me for personal satisfaction (in propria forma); and in the Farm Field, on St. Simon's Island, (Deo juvante,) I will give you a full front of my body, and do all in my power to satisfy your thirst for blood! And more, I will wager you $100, to be planked on the scratch! that J.A. Willey will neither kill or defeat ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society

... stones, full of animation, life, and thought, wherein every one is worse than inimical, indifferent to wit; I made a very natural if foolish resolve, which required such unknown impossibilities, that my spirits rose. It was as if I had laid a wager with myself, for I was at once the ...
— The Magic Skin • Honore de Balzac

... wroth, and the Hashimi vein[FN36] started out from between his eyes and he cried out to Mesrour and said to him, "Go forth and see which of them is dead." So Mesrour went out, running, and the Khalif said to Zubeideh, "Wilt thou lay me a wager?" "Yes," answered she; "I will wager, and I say that Aboulhusn is dead." "And I," rejoined the Khalif, "wager and say that none is dead save Nuzhet el Fuad; and the stake shall be the Garden of Pleasance against thy palace and the Pavilion of Pictures." So they [agreed upon this ...
— Tales from the Arabic Volumes 1-3 • John Payne

... and options, 1. Pascal's wager, 5. Clifford's veto, 8. Psychological causes of belief, 9. Thesis of the Essay, 11. Empiricism and absolutism, 12. Objective certitude and its unattainability, 13. Two different sorts of risks in believing, 17. Some risk unavoidable, 19. Faith may bring forth its own verification, ...
— The Will to Believe - and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy • William James

... p. 114, note 6. The meaning here is obscure. I can only conjecture that the party made a wager of some kind with the pastrycook's man for his cakes. See p. ...
— Publications of the Scottish History Society, Vol. 36 • Sir John Lauder

... could chance upon a doorway in which to stand out of the rush, they were pressed against the wall flat as cakes by a crowd of bold apprentices in holiday attire going out to a wager of archery to be shot ...
— Master Skylark • John Bennett

... above his music-book, and was confidently believed to have never seen a play. There were legends in the place that he did not so much as know the popular heroes and heroines by sight, and that the low comedian had 'mugged' at him in his richest manner fifty nights for a wager, and he had shown no trace of consciousness. The carpenters had a joke to the effect that he was dead without being aware of it; and the frequenters of the pit supposed him to pass his whole life, night and day, and Sunday ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens

... Newmarket, and renewed their acquaintance. Mr. C. kept his word religiously; he not only refrained from giving Turpin into custody, but made a boast that he had fairly won some of his money back again in an honest way. Turpin offered to bet with him on some favourite horse, and Mr. C. accepted the wager with as good a grace as he could have done from the best gentleman in England. Turpin lost his bet and paid it immediately, and was so smitten with the generous behaviour of Mr. C., that he told him how deeply he regretted ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay

... said the gratified Sergeant-Major, "it wud be the polite thing to make a few for thim dacent people on the ground-flure. I'll wager they've niver seen th' taste av' ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, February 18th, 1920 • Various

... a trooper who did not wager all the cash he had or could by any means get. There was not an officer who was not dragged in by the growing power of the craze. And daily, parties of Indians came to the Fort to put up cash, or peer around to ...
— The Preacher of Cedar Mountain - A Tale of the Open Country • Ernest Thompson Seton

... for the very smallest chance of recovering the three kingdoms which he had thrown away, he should be willing to stake what was not his own, the honour of the French arms, the grandeur and the safety of the French monarchy. To a French statesman such a wager might well appear in a different light. But Louvois was gone. His master yielded to the importunity of James, and determined to send an expedition against ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 4 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... I have been in the morning?' I said. 'Did she not know that the horrible wager related ...
— Stray Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge

... chair, placing it under the maple tree, then sat down near her. "I should think you'd get some clothes like Hepsey's," he began. "I'll wager, now, that you haven't a gown like that ...
— Lavender and Old Lace • Myrtle Reed

... up your mind to that," declared Thad. "I've heard several farmers tell how they lost a fine swarm, no matter how much racket they kicked up with dishpans and all sorts of tin buckets. There are lots of bee trees in this region I'd be willing to wager now. And if we could find one, it would be great. I like honey about as well as the next fellow, don't you forget ...
— The Boy Scouts' First Camp Fire - or, Scouting with the Silver Fox Patrol • Herbert Carter

... Neither Godfrey nor my nephew would allow it. Come, let us put it from our minds. It has always been my experience, that whatever I expected from my much admired sister-in-law, that was the exact reverse of what she actually did. Therefore let us attend to topics, though I wager that you have no fresh ...
— Love and Life • Charlotte M. Yonge

... who had once eaten two geese for a wager) opened the door, and showed me into the best parlor. Here, Mr. Trabb had taken unto himself the best table, and had got all the leaves up, and was holding a kind of black Bazaar, with the aid of a quantity of black pins. At the moment of my arrival, he had just finished putting somebody's ...
— Great Expectations • Charles Dickens

... in 1567, and is described in the title-page, as "not only godly, learned, and fruitful, but also well furnished with pleasant mirth and pastime, very delectable for those which shall hear or read the same: Made by the learned clerk, Lewis Wager." It bears clear internal evidence of having been written after the Reformation; and the prologue shows that it was acted by itinerant players, and had been performed ...
— Shakespeare: His Life, Art, And Characters, Volume I. • H. N. Hudson

... mine, are you never going to grow old?" he said. "Here you are at forty-five with the roses of sixteen—and not a gray hair, I'll wager." ...
— The Golden Road • Lucy Maud Montgomery

... were none the less right," returned Richard, who saw the doubts which the name of Hanway bred in the other's mind. "I'd wager my life on it. I never heard of this Miss San Reve, but she is from Ottawa, Mr. Duff says. I ought to have told you that Storri ...
— The President - A novel • Alfred Henry Lewis

... and in vice. Men sinned like giants and as giants atoned. Common sense, mediocrity—save upon the throne—were rare. Even the fools in their folly were great. The spectacle was recurrent of men who would smilingly stake a fortune as a wager, who could for hours drench their drink-sodden brains in wine, then rise like gods refreshed, and with an iron will throw off the stupor which bound them, to wield a flood of eloquence that swayed senates and ruled the fate of nations. ...
— The Letter-Bag of Lady Elizabeth Spencer-Stanhope v. I. • A. M. W. Stirling (compiler)

... him?" asked Labienus, a black-browed veteran from the south of Gaul. "I'll wager a month's pay that he was not so trustful as to come alone among ...
— The Last Galley Impressions and Tales - Impressions and Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle

... you in a bit of a fight. In short, Harney was heard to say, 'I'll have every horse from Spring Bank before to-morrow morning; and if that Yankee miss appears to dispute my claim, as I trust she will, I'll have her, too;' and then the bully laid a wager that 'Major Alice,' as he called you, would be his prisoner in ...
— Bad Hugh • Mary Jane Holmes

... canina is to be met with amongst schoolboys, which affects the juveniles most when most in health. We remember a gentleman offering a wager, that a boy taken promiscuously from any of the public charity-schools, should, five minutes after his dinner, eat a ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 13, - Issue 350, January 3, 1829 • Various

... gamester, that plays with equal stakes and equal skill, and stands by the fortune of the game, good or bad; and I call him a ruffling gamester, or ane of the first head, who ventures frankly and deeply upon such a wager. But he, my lord, who has the patience and prudence never to venture beyond small game, such as, at most, might crack the Christmas-box of a grocer's 'prentice, who vies with those that have little to hazard, and who therefore, having the larger stock, can ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott

... read, in Dr. Russel's account of Aleppo, that numbers of these birds visit that country towards the end of February, when they build as in Europe, and, having hatched their young, disappear about the end of July. They are also said to be by no means uncommon North America. Sir Charles Wager and Captain Wright, saw vast flocks of them at sea, when on their passage from one country another. White, in a pretty little poem, which he calls "The Naturalist's Summer Evening ...
— Domestic pleasures - or, the happy fire-side • F. B. Vaux

... time? I'll wager my head he was liking you the most when he appeared to the least—he's such a queer old cove! I've heard he was disappointed in love once, and that some friend of his proved traitor to him; and that's what has made him so shy of showing any thing like affection ...
— The Drummer Boy • John Trowbridge

... fancies of that sort are never dangerous, they have nothing in common with those that are passing nowadays through most girls' brains. Having 'a day!'—what a foolish notion: And then to let little girls take part in it, even in a corner of the room. I'll wager that, though her skirts are half way up her legs, and her hair is dressed like a baby's, that that little de Nailles is less of a child than my granddaughter, who has been brought up by the Benedictines. You say that she probably does not understand ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet

... of the party sleeping upon mattresses placed on the floor of a large empty apartment. We slept a few hours very soundly, rose before daylight, wakened the others, who, lying on the ground, rolled up in their sarapes, seemed to be sleeping for a wager, and remounted our horses, not sorry at the prospect of a day's rest at Atlacamulco. It was dark when we set off; but the sun had risen and had lighted up the bright green fields of sugar-cane, and the beautiful coffee-plantations that look like flowering myrtles, ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon de la Barca

... either, five and thirty years ago," says Mr. George. "But I'll wager that at ninety she would be near as upright as me, and near as broad ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens

... what I believe," exclaimed De Royster. "It seems a queer thing that Roy should be taken sick so suddenly. Why, he was as healthy as a young ox. I'll wager there's something wrong. He came here to New York to expose a man he thought was a swindler, and I believe the man has him in his power now. I must do something ...
— The Boy from the Ranch - Or Roy Bradner's City Experiences • Frank V. Webster

... largest of bridges. Some of the types on the water-side are of the sort that arrest a sketcher—figures of stalwart, brown-faced Basques, such as I had seen of old in great numbers at Biarritz, with their loose circular caps, their white sandals, their air of walking for a wager. Never was a tougher, a harder race. They are not mariners nor watermen, but, putting questions of temper aside, they are the best possible dock-porters. "Il s'y fait un commerce terrible," a douanier said to me, as he looked up and down the interminable docks; and such a place has indeed much ...
— A Little Tour in France • Henry James

... practical joke played off by Saunders or Gregson, or some other of Walter's giddy and not over-considerate companions? He almost thought it must be so, and that his brother had put them up to the joke for some wild piece of fun, or to win some senseless wager. Rather vexed at the thought, and not feeling over amiable towards the missile, if such it was, which had come so unseasonably and so unceremoniously into his chamber, he was half inclined at first to throw it back through the window on to the snow. And yet, perhaps, he had ...
— Amos Huntingdon • T.P. Wilson

... womankind are not endowed with the faculty of finding us out! THEY don't doubt, and probe, and weigh, and take your measure. Lay down this paper, my benevolent friend and reader, go into your drawing-room now, and utter a joke ever so old, and I wager sixpence the ladies there will all begin to laugh. Go to Brown's house, and tell Mrs. Brown and the young ladies what you think of him, and see what a welcome you will get! In like manner, let him come to your house, and tell YOUR good lady his candid opinion ...
— The Lock and Key Library • Julian Hawthorne, Ed.

... canoes hereabouts?" said the man, after a moment's silence; "for, if not, there's someone about to pay us a visit. I would wager my best gun that I hear the stroke ...
— The Young Fur Traders • R.M. Ballantyne

... with affected composure, while inwardly consumed with rage, more at my success than at his own loss. Well do I remember the fiery glance, the treacherous pallor that overspread his features when, at a public festival, we shot for a wager before assembled thousands. He challenged me, and both nations stood by; Spaniards and Netherlanders wagered on either side; I was the victor; his ball missed, mine hit the mark, and the air was rent by acclamations from my friends. His shot now hits me. Tell him that I know this, that I know ...
— Egmont - A Tragedy In Five Acts • Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

... game Rodney won. Then the "Chevalier" remarked, as though he were doing the lad a favour, "Now we'll not prolong this; I must be going. Here's my wager." ...
— Rodney, the Ranger - With Daniel Morgan on Trail and Battlefield • John V. Lane

... a dozen," he replied. "Let us take an instance. Supposing Jeffrey executed this will for a wager; that he immediately revoked it and made a fresh will, that he placed the latter in the custody of some person and that that person ...
— The Mystery of 31 New Inn • R. Austin Freeman



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