noun
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of payday
Explanation
When you have a job, your payday is the day you get paid. You might wait to buy yourself a new outfit until after payday. Some jobs have a weekly payday — maybe Fridays are payday at the ice cream shop where you work. In other cases, you have to wait two weeks, or even a month, between paydays. You can also use payday to mean a sudden success or influx of money, either earned or won: "That movie brought a huge payday to its producers." Since 1932, there's also been a peanut and nougat-based candy bar called PayDay.
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.
See Examples For:
Allison Ellsworth and her husband, founders of soda brand Poppi, maxed out their credit cards to build the company, wagering a sale could reap a bigger payday.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 15, 2026
A Tesla-SpaceX merger would give Musk a shortcut to his $1 trillion payday.
From MarketWatch ● Aug. 11, 2026
Bank, Capital One, PNC, TD Bank and BMO—between 2020 and 2023: oil and gas, coal, firearms, private prisons, payday and payroll lending, tobacco, adult entertainment, political-action committees, and digital assets.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 14, 2026
Tuesday's auction will be a payday that has been a long time coming for the team, and could be the biggest yet.
From BBC ● Jul. 11, 2026
The disappearance was astounding, as astounding, certainly, as the Grand Conspiracy of Lowery Field, when all sixty-four men in a single barrack vanished one payday and were never heard of again.
From "Catch-22" by Joseph Heller
“It’s just the process of it, man,” said Chargers safety Derwin James, who has earned a pair of hefty paydays after a training camp hold in of his own four years ago.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 30, 2026
Annual wages soared by as much as 7% — the fastest rate in more than 40 years — and job switchers won even bigger paydays.
From MarketWatch ● Jul. 11, 2026
For early investors and executives, it could mean enormous paydays.
From Salon ● Jun. 13, 2026
Investment banks leading their IPOs would be in line for fees, while funds that backed them could expect their own big paydays.
From Barron's ● May 5, 2026
She goes to the door to see if Dad is coming down the lane and she talks about the paydays when we searched for him all over Brooklyn.
From "Angela's Ashes: A Memoir" by Frank McCourt
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.
