wage-earner

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   a person who works in return for wages or a salary, especially as distinguished from an employer or someone living on investments

   Inflation reduced the purchasing power of the average wage-earner.

2. 2
   noun

   a person whose earnings provide all or much of a household's financial support

   After her partner became ill, she was the family's sole wage-earner.

A compound of wage and earner, recorded in English since the nineteenth century. Wage entered Middle English through Anglo-Norman wage, ultimately from a Germanic word for a pledge; earner is the agent noun of earn. The hyphenated form has long existed alongside the open form wage earner.

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