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Glite Dictionary
wage-earning

wage-earning

1 3.7
People who work for pay, often in manual or hourly jobs
  • adjective
  • /ˈweɪdʒˌɜrnɪŋ/
translation icon : asalariado
  • The so-called "new home economics" raised questions about the relationship between women's wage-earning and familial power.
  • wage-earning women
  • wage-earning employment
  • wage-earning families

Is it so that they can get a, you know, a wage earning job?

Examples

  • In periods of high unemployment, wage-earning women were also accused of stealing jobs to which men had a prior claim.

    Academic text (2005)

  • If you look at the list of the top wage-earning non-profit leaders, none are religious.

    Blog text (23)

  • But most benefits are related to the individual as an employee, to his or her wage-earning capacity.

    Academic text (1991)

  • But there has been a change, over time, in the public definition of women, from mothers to "wage-earning parents."

    Academic text (1991)

  • In both cases, the courts reaffirmed a state's right to make wage-earning a condition of aid.

    Academic text (1995)

  • The shift in social values toward wage-earning for mothers applied more to middle-class women than to poor women.

    Academic text (1995)

  • Yet outside the house, countless wage-earning women from the lower classes lived lives of exploitation and misery during that era.

    Academic text (1998)

  • Little scholarly attention has been paid to the relationship between wage-earning and welfare for the years preceding World War II.

    Academic text (1995)

  • Social scientists noted the correlation between wage-earning, poverty, and mother-only families.

    Academic text (1995)

  • Many young adults are focused on securing a wage-earning job to achieve financial independence.

Synonyms

paid
vswage-earning
1 1.0

Getting money for work you do

refers specifically to earning money in hourly or manual industrial jobs
employed
vswage-earning
1.0

Having a paid job

focuses on hourly manual or industrial work rather than any paid job
working
vswage-earning
1.0

Having a job and earning money from it

emphasizes earning money especially in hourly or manual industrial jobs
paying
vswage-earning
2.7

A job or activity that gives money for the work you do

focuses on the person earning money from such jobs rather than the job itself

Antonyms

unemployed
274 1.7

Without work and looking for a job

volunteer
7 3.5

Not paid for doing a job

How Coercive

slavery
225 4.8
peonage
  • NSFW
1 9.9
indentured
1 8.3
labor contract
  • Formal
5 2.8
wage-earning
1 3.7

Surface Forms

wage-earning positive

Morphology

wage-earning = wage + earn (transparent) = wage + earn + ing

The adjective is a straightforward compound meaning 'earning wages'; its components and structure are directly predictable from the base words.

Etymology

Wage-earning joins wage, which means 'payment for work', and earn, which means 'to get money by working', so it literally means 'getting pay from a job' and is used for people who are paid for their work, often by the hour.