Definition of "gage"

Great debts / Wherein my time, sometimes too prodigal, / Hath left me gaged.

c. 1596–1598 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Merchant of Venice”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, [Act I, scene i]

O doe not goe, this feaſt (I'le gage my life) / Is but a plot to trayne you to your ruine, / Be rul'd, you ſha'not goe.

c. 1626 or 1629–1633 (first performance), [John Ford], ’Tis Pitty Shee’s a Whore […], London: […] Nicholas Okes for Richard Collins, […], published 1633, Act V, signature I2, verso

A moiety competent / Was gaged by our king.

c. 1599–1602 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmarke”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, [Act I, scene i]

“But it is enough that I challenge the trial by combat — there lies my gage.” She took her embroidered glove from her hand, and flung it down before the Grand Master with an air of mingled simplicity and dignity…

1820, Walter Scott, Ivanhoe; a Romance. […], volumes (please specify |volume=I to III), Edinburgh: […] Archibald Constable and Co.; London: Hurst, Robinson, and Co. […]

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

[I]t seemed to create a sort of material link between the Princess and himself, and at the end of three months it almost appeared to him, not that the exquisite book was an intended present from his own hand, but that it had been placed in that hand by the most remarkable woman in Europe.... [T]he superior piece of work he had done after seeing her last, in the immediate heat of his emotion, turned into a kind of proof and gage, as if a ghost, in vanishing from sight, had left a palpable relic.

1886, Henry James, The Princess Casamassima, London: Macmillan and Co.

Of course, I take a bang or some mud in coffee now and then, and I pick up on gage right smart.

1951 December 20, William S. Burroughs, “To Allen Ginsberg”, in Oliver Harris, editor, The Letters of William S. Burroughs, 1945–1959, New York: Penguin, published 1993, page 98

Black faces, white tablecloth, gleaming very sharp knives lined up by the saucers... tobacco and "gage" smoke richly blended, eye-reddening and tart as wine, yowzah gwine smoke a little ob dis hyah sheeit gib de wrinkles in mah brain a proccess!

1973, Thomas Pynchon, Gravity's Rainbow, 1st US edition, New York: Viking Press, part 1: Beyond the Zero, page 62

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

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

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