pay
EnglishEdit
PronunciationEdit
Etymology 1Edit
From Middle English payen, from Old French paier, from Medieval Latin pācāre (“to settle, satisfy”) from Latin pacare (“to pacify”). Displaced native Middle English yelden, yielden (“to pay”) (from Old English ġieldan (“to pay”)), Middle English schotten (“to pay, make payment”) (from Old English scot, ġescot (“payment”)).
VerbEdit
pay (third-person singular simple present pays, present participle paying, simple past and past participle paid or (archaic) payed)
- (transitive) To give money or other compensation to in exchange for goods or services.
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he paid him to clean the place up; he paid her off the books and in kind where possible
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1918, W. B. Maxwell, chapter 17, in The Mirror and the Lamp:
- 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.
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2013 June 21, Oliver Burkeman, “The tao of tech”, in The Guardian Weekly, volume 189, number 2, page 48:
- 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.
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- (transitive, intransitive) To discharge, as a debt or other obligation, by giving or doing what is due or required.
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she offered to pay the bill; he has paid his debt to society
- Bible, Psalms xxxvii. 21
- The wicked borroweth, and payeth not again.
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2013 June 22, “T time”, in The Economist, volume 407, number 8841, page 68:
- 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.
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- (transitive) To be profitable for.
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It didn't pay him to keep the store open any more.
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- (transitive) To give (something else than money).
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to pay attention
- William Shakespeare (c.1564–1616)
- not paying me a welcome
- 1909, Archibald Marshall, The Squire's Daughter, chapterI:
- 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.
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- (intransitive) To be profitable or worth the effort.
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crime doesn’t pay; it will pay to wait
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- (intransitive) To discharge an obligation or debt.
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He was allowed to go as soon as he paid.
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- (intransitive) To suffer consequences.
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He paid for his fun in the sun with a terrible sunburn.
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HypernymsEdit
- (to give money): compensate
HyponymsEdit
Hyponyms of pay (to give money)
Derived termsEdit
Terms derived from pay (verb)
Related termsEdit
Terms related to pay (verb)
TranslationsEdit
to give money in exchange for goods or services
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to discharge by giving or doing what is due or required
to give (e.g. attention)
to be profitable
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- The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables, removing any numbers. Numbers do not necessarily match those in definitions. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout#Translations.
Translations to be checked
NounEdit
pay (countable and uncountable, plural pays)
- Money given in return for work; salary or wages.
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Many employers have rules designed to keep employees from comparing their pays.
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1898, Winston Churchill, chapter 10, in The Celebrity:
- The skipper Mr. Cooke had hired at Far Harbor was a God-fearing man with a luke warm interest in his new billet and employer, and had only been prevailed upon to take charge of the yacht after the offer of an emolument equal to half a year's sea pay of an ensign in the navy.
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Derived termsEdit
Terms derived from pay (noun)
TranslationsEdit
money given in return for work
AdjectiveEdit
pay (not comparable)
- Operable or accessible on deposit of coins.
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pay toilet
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- Pertaining to or requiring payment.
TranslationsEdit
operable or accessible on deposit of coins
pertaining to or requiring payment
Etymology 2Edit
Old French peier, from Latin picare (“to pitch”).
VerbEdit
pay (third-person singular simple present pays, present participle paying, simple past and past participle payed)
- (nautical, transitive) To cover (the bottom of a vessel, a seam, a spar, etc.) with tar or pitch, or a waterproof composition of tallow, resin, etc.; to smear.
TranslationsEdit
to cover with a waterproof substance
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StatisticsEdit
Most common English words before 1923 in Project Gutenberg: pass · doing · note · #548: pay · red · unto · receive
Further readingEdit
- pay in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913
- pay in The Century Dictionary, The Century Co., New York, 1911
- pay at OneLook Dictionary Search
AnagramsEdit
AzeriEdit
| Other scripts | |
|---|---|
| Cyrillic | пај |
| Roman | pay |
| Perso-Arabic | پای |
NounEdit
pay (definite accusative payı, plural paylar)
DeclensionEdit
Declension of pay
Possessive forms of pay
KalashaEdit
KurdishEdit
Old PortugueseEdit
EtymologyEdit
From padre, from Latin patrem, accusative singular of pater (“father”), from Proto-Indo-European *ph₂tḗr.
PronunciationEdit
NounEdit
pay m
- (hypocoristic, usually childish) papa, dad, father
- 1525-1526, Cancioneiro da Biblioteca Nacional, João de Gaia, B 1433: Vosso pai na rua (facsimile)
- Vosso pay na Rua / anta porta sua
- Your dad [is] on the street / before your door
- Vosso pay na Rua / anta porta sua
- 1525-1526, Cancioneiro da Biblioteca Nacional, João de Gaia, B 1433: Vosso pai na rua (facsimile)
SynonymsEdit
Coordinate termsEdit
DescendantsEdit
PortugueseEdit
NounEdit
pay m (plural pays)
- Obsolete spelling of pai
- 1545, Garcia de Resende, Liuro das obras de Garcia de Reſẽnde que trata da vida […] do christianiſſimo; muito alto ⁊ muyto poderoſo principe el Rey dõ João o ſegundo deſte nome, page 1:
- De ſeu pay ⁊ ſua mãy ⁊ ſeu nacimento.
- About his father and his mother and his birth.
- De ſeu pay ⁊ ſua mãy ⁊ ſeu nacimento.
- 1545, Garcia de Resende, Liuro das obras de Garcia de Reſẽnde que trata da vida […] do christianiſſimo; muito alto ⁊ muyto poderoſo principe el Rey dõ João o ſegundo deſte nome, page 1:
QuechuaEdit
TurkishEdit
EtymologyEdit
From Proto-Turkic.
PronunciationEdit
NounEdit
pay (definite accusative payı, plural paylar)
DeclensionEdit
declension of pay
possessive forms of pay