English edit

Etymology edit

From wain +‎ -age. Compare Old French waaignage.

Noun edit

wainage (countable and uncountable, plural wainages)

  1. (UK, law, obsolete) Gainage; the team and implements necessary for the cultivation of land.
    • 1900, William James Ashley, Surveys, Historic and Economic, page 46:
      Bracton says in one place that the villein has an action against his lord if the lord should take away the villein's wainage, i.e. plough and plough-team.
  2. The provision of carriages, carts, etc., for the transportation of goods or produce.
    • 1845, Adolphe Thiers, translated by Thomas W. Redhead, The HIstory of the French Revolution, page 342:
      Such an extraordinary wainage could only have been accomplished by the mode of forced requisitions, and by devoting 5000 extra horses to the service; for the conveyance to Lyons was required of 14,000 bombs, 34,000 balls, 300,000 pounds of powder, 800,000 cartridges, and 130 pieces of ordnance.
    • 1887, Rudolph Gneist, Augustus Henry Keane, The Student's History of the English Parliament, page 99:
      Provendering and wainage without consent of owner shall be allowed only on due payment in money.
    • 1909, A. M. Chambers, A Constitutional History of England, page 134:
      The royal purveyors, who provided for the wants of the peripatetic court, claimed the right of " caption " or seizure , as well as those of “preemption” or compulsory purchase and of "wainage" or the right to horse and wagon for the king's service.
    • 1916, James Maclehose, The Scottish Historical Review - Volume 13, page 184:
      There were also services such as wainage, which may have been very onerous, but were not obligations of a servile character.

Anagrams edit