pay
Language: English
Part of speech: verb
Pronunciation: enpr: pā
ipa: /peɪ/
ipa: [pʰeɪ̯]
rhymes: -eɪ
Forms: form: pays
form: paying
form: paid
form: paid
form: payed
form: payed
form: no-table-tags
form: glossary
form: pay
form: pay
form: paid
form: payed
form: pay
form: payest
form: paid
form: paidest
form: paidst
form: payed
form: payedst
form: pays
form: payeth
form: paid
form: payed
form: pay
form: paid
form: payed
form: pay
form: paid
form: payed
form: pay
form: -
form: paying
form: paid
form: payed
Etymology: From Middle English payen, from Old French paiier (“pay”), from Medieval Latin pācāre (“to settle, satisfy”) from Latin pācāre (“to pacify”). In this sense, displaced native Old English ġield (“pay”) and ġieldan (“to pay”), whence Modern English yield.
Senses: examples: text: How much will the job pay?
text: he paid him to clean the place up
text: he paid her off the books and in kind where possible
text: This time was most dreadful for Lilian. Thrown on her own resources and almost penniless, she maintained herself and paid the rent of a wretched room near the hospital by working as a charwoman, sempstress, anything.
ref: 1918, W[illiam] B[abington] Maxwell, chapter XVII, in The Mirror and the Lamp, Indianapolis, Ind.: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, →OCLC:
text: Admiral Hackett: You can pay a soldier to fire a gun. You can pay him to charge the enemy. But you can't pay him to believe.
ref: 2012, BioWare, Mass Effect 3, Redwood City: Electronic Arts, →OCLC, PC, scene: Normandy SR-2:
text: The dirty secret of the internet is that all this distraction and interruption is immensely profitable. Web companies like to boast about[…]and so on. But the real way to build a successful online business is to be better than your rivals at undermining people's control of their own attention. Partly, this is a result of how online advertising has traditionally worked: advertisers pay for clicks, and a click is a click, however it's obtained.
ref: 2013 June 21, Oliver Burkeman, “The tao of tech”, in The Guardian Weekly, volume 189, number 2, page 48:
glosses: To give money or other compensation to in exchange for goods or services.
examples: text: she offered to pay the bill
text: he has paid his debt to society
text: The wicked borroweth, and payeth not again.
ref: 1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Psalms 37:21:
text: The petty ſtreames that paie a dailie det / To their ſalt ſoveraigne with their freſh fals haſt, / Adde to his flowe, but alter not his taſt.
ref: 1594, William Shakespeare, Lucrece (First Quarto), London: […] Richard Field, for Iohn Harrison, […], →OCLC:
text: Yet in “Through a Latte, Darkly”, a new study of how Starbucks has largely avoided paying tax in Britain, Edward Kleinbard […] shows that current tax rules make it easy for all sorts of firms to generate what he calls “stateless income”: […]. In Starbucks’s case, the firm has in effect turned the process of making an expensive cup of coffee into intellectual property.
ref: 2013 June 22, “T time”, in The Economist, volume 407, number 8841, page 68:
glosses: To discharge, as a debt or other obligation, by giving or doing what is due or required.
examples: text: It didn't pay him to keep the store open any more.
glosses: To be profitable for.
examples: text: to pay attention
text: not paying me a welcome
ref: c. 1595–1596 (date written), William Shakespeare, “A Midsommer Nights Dreame”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies: Published According to the True Originall Copies (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act V, scene i]:
text: They stayed together during three dances, went out on to the terrace, explored wherever they were permitted to explore, paid two visits to the buffet, and enjoyed themselves much in the same way as if they had been school-children surreptitiously breaking loose from an assembly of grown-ups.
ref: 1909, Archibald Marshall [pseudonym; Arthur Hammond Marshall], “A Court Ball”, in The Squire’s Daughter, New York, N.Y.: Dodd, Mead and Company, published 1919, →OCLC, page 9:
glosses: To give (something else than money).
examples: text: crime doesn’t pay
text: it will pay to wait
glosses: To be profitable or worth the effort.
examples: text: He was allowed to go as soon as he paid.
glosses: To discharge an obligation or debt.
examples: text: He paid for his fun in the sun with a terrible sunburn.
glosses: To suffer consequences.
examples: text: Sutho took a pull at his Johnny Walker and Coke and laughed that trademark laugh of his and said: `Okay. I'll pay that all right.'
ref: 1996, Jon Byrell, Lairs, Urgers and Coat-Tuggers, Sydney: Ironbark, page 294:
glosses: To admit that a joke, punchline, etc., was funny.
Synonyms: word: ante up
word: cough up
word: defray
word: do the needful
word: expend
word: foot the bill
word: fork out
word: fork over
word: lay out
word: pay
word: pay the freight
word: pay the piper
word: pay the price
word: pay up
word: pony up
word: quit
word: shell out
word: spend
word: stump up
Hypernyms: sense: to give money
word: compensate
word: give
Hyponyms: sense: Hyponyms of pay (to give money)
word: bribe
sense: Hyponyms of pay (to give money)
word: disburse
sense: Hyponyms of pay (to give money)
word: fund
sense: Hyponyms of pay (to give money)
word: pay as you earn
sense: Hyponyms of pay (to give money)
word: pay back
sense: Hyponyms of pay (to give money)
word: pay down
sense: Hyponyms of pay (to give money)
word: pay forward
sense: Hyponyms of pay (to give money)
word: pay in
sense: Hyponyms of pay (to give money)
word: pay off
sense: Hyponyms of pay (to give money)
word: pay one's dues
sense: Hyponyms of pay (to give money)
word: pay one's own way
sense: Hyponyms of pay (to give money)
word: pay one's respects
sense: Hyponyms of pay (to give money)
word: pay one's way
sense: Hyponyms of pay (to give money)
word: pay out
sense: Hyponyms of pay (to give money)
word: pay respect
sense: Hyponyms of pay (to give money)
word: pay the bills
sense: Hyponyms of pay (to give money)
word: pay the freight
sense: Hyponyms of pay (to give money)
word: pay the penalty
sense: Hyponyms of pay (to give money)
word: pay the piper
sense: Hyponyms of pay (to give money)
word: pay-to-view
sense: Hyponyms of pay (to give money)
word: pay up
sense: Hyponyms of pay (to give money)
word: reimburse
word: ante
word: BNPL
word: invest
word: repay
word: settle
word: splurge
word: squander
Derived terms: ability to pay
borrow from Peter to pay Paul
buy and pay for
consent or pay
copay
crime doesn't pay
devil to pay
forepay
hell to pay
high-paying
if you pay peanuts, you get monkeys
low-paying
mispay
not pay any mind
outpay
overpay
payable
pay-and-display
pay and display
pay-as-you-eat
pay-as-you-go
pay attention
pay a visit
pay back in someone's own coin
pay-by-wave
pay dearly
pay dirt
pay dividends
pay down
payee
payer
pay for
pay for itself
pay for one's whistle
pay for play
pay good money after bad
pay heed
pay homage to
pay home
pay-in slip
pay it forward
payment
pay nature's debt
pay no heed
pay no mind
pay off old scores
payola
pay one's addresses
pay one's debt to society
pay one's last respects
pay one's own freight
payor
pay or okay
pay or play
pay overs
pay-per-click
pay-per-install
pay per play
pay-per-view
pay someone's way
pay the debt of nature
pay the fiddler
pay the price
pay the rent
pay the ultimate price
pay through the nose
pay-to-play
pay to play
pay-to-stay
pay to stay
pay towards
pay-to-win
pay to win
pay train
pay what you want
pay with one's life
pitch and pay
play or pay
prepay
press F to pay respects
procure to pay
purchase to pay
repay
rob Peter to pay Paul
surpay
take-or-pay
take or pay
the devil to pay and no pitch hot or ready
underpay
unpay
you get what you pay for
Related terms: word: cash on the barrelhead
word: plunk