pay for
Britishverb
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to make payment (of) for
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(intr) to suffer or be punished, as for a mistake, wrong decision, etc
in his old age he paid for the laxity of his youth
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Cover the expenses of, defray the cost of, as in I'll pay for your movie ticket , or This truck will pay for itself within a year . [Mid-1300s]
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Atone for, suffer for, as in He may have looked like a good manager, but his successor will end up paying for his mistakes . [Late 1600s]
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
And there’s a similar gap for renters too: On average, these residents estimated they would need about $250,000 in addition to insurance payouts to pay for lost belongings and temporary housing.
From Los Angeles Times • May 7, 2026
But student Anna Chizhikova, 21, was frustrated she could not access her banking app, pay for lunch or talk to friends.
From Barron's • May 7, 2026
“This announcement is clearly a reaction to our organizing and demands for higher take-home pay for baristas,” Starbucks Workers United said in a statement to MarketWatch.
From MarketWatch • May 6, 2026
He wonders whether Europeans will “have to confront their failure to generate enough growth to pay for social benefits.”
From The Wall Street Journal • May 6, 2026
She wanted to go to university but discovered there would be no scholarship to pay for it.
From "Not Nothing" by Gayle Forman
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
