Etimology
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.
verb
pay (third-person singular simple present pays, present participle paying, simple past and past participle paid or (obsolete) payed)
(transitive) To give money or other compensation to in exchange for goods or services.
(transitive, intransitive) To discharge, as a debt or other obligation, by giving or doing what is due or required.
(transitive) To be profitable for.
(transitive) To give (something else than money).
(intransitive) To be profitable or worth the effort.
(intransitive) To discharge an obligation or debt.
(intransitive) To suffer consequences.
(transitive) To admit that a joke, punchline, etc., was funny.
Examples
he paid him to clean the place up
he paid her off the books and in kind where possible
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.
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.
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.
she offered to pay the bill
he has paid his debt to society
The wicked borroweth, and payeth not again.
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.
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.
It didn't pay him to keep the store open any more.
to pay attention
not paying me a welcome
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.
crime doesn’t pay
it will pay to wait
He was allowed to go as soon as he paid.
He paid for his fun in the sun with a terrible sunburn.
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.'
Related words
hypernyms
(to give money): compensate
hyponyms
bribe
disburse
fund
pay as you earn
pay back
pay down
pay forward
pay in
pay off
pay off
pay one's dues
pay one's respects
pay one's way
pay out
pay respect
pay the bills
pay the freight
pay the penalty
pay the piper
pay-to-view
pay up
reimburse
noun
pay (countable and uncountable, plural pays)
Money given in return for work; salary or wages.
Examples
Many employers have rules designed to keep employees from comparing their pays.
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.
adjective
pay (not comparable)
Operable or accessible on deposit of coins.
Pertaining to or requiring payment.
Examples
pay toilet
pay television
Etimology
Old French peier, from Latin picare (“to cover with pitch”).
verb
pay (third-person singular simple present pays, present participle paying, simple past and past participle payed or paid)
(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.