See pay the piper on Wiktionary
{
"etymology_text": "Sense 1 is from the English phrase who pays the piper calls the tune; sense 2 may allude to the pied piper.",
"forms": [
{
"form": "pays the piper",
"tags": [
"present",
"singular",
"third-person"
]
},
{
"form": "paying the piper",
"tags": [
"participle",
"present"
]
},
{
"form": "paid the piper",
"tags": [
"participle",
"past"
]
},
{
"form": "paid the piper",
"tags": [
"past"
]
}
],
"head_templates": [
{
"args": {
"1": "pay<,,paid> the piper"
},
"expansion": "pay the piper (third-person singular simple present pays the piper, present participle paying the piper, simple past and past participle paid the piper)",
"name": "en-verb"
}
],
"lang": "English",
"lang_code": "en",
"pos": "verb",
"senses": [
{
"categories": [
{
"_dis": "67 33",
"kind": "other",
"name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
"parents": [
"Entries with incorrect language header",
"Entry maintenance"
],
"source": "w+disamb"
},
{
"_dis": "52 48",
"kind": "other",
"name": "English light verb constructions",
"parents": [],
"source": "w+disamb"
},
{
"_dis": "67 33",
"kind": "other",
"name": "Pages with 1 entry",
"parents": [],
"source": "w+disamb"
},
{
"_dis": "69 31",
"kind": "other",
"name": "Pages with entries",
"parents": [],
"source": "w+disamb"
}
],
"examples": [
{
"ref": "1898 August 1, Swami Vivekananda, “To Swami Brahmananda”, in The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda:",
"text": "Those that pay the piper must command the tune.",
"type": "quote"
},
{
"ref": "1905, George Bernard Shaw, Major Barbara:",
"text": "Be off with you, my boy, and play with your caucuses and leading articles and historic parties and great leaders and burning questions and the rest of your toys. I am going back to my counting house to pay the piper and call the tune.",
"type": "quote"
}
],
"glosses": [
"To pay expenses for something, and thus be in a position to be in control."
],
"id": "en-pay_the_piper-en-verb-m5~X8BIz",
"links": [
[
"expense",
"expense"
],
[
"control",
"control"
]
],
"raw_glosses": [
"(idiomatic) To pay expenses for something, and thus be in a position to be in control."
],
"synonyms": [
{
"_dis1": "67 33",
"sense": "to control by paying for",
"word": "pay the fiddler"
}
],
"tags": [
"idiomatic"
]
},
{
"categories": [
{
"_dis": "52 48",
"kind": "other",
"name": "English light verb constructions",
"parents": [],
"source": "w+disamb"
},
{
"_dis": "30 70",
"kind": "other",
"name": "English predicates",
"parents": [],
"source": "w+disamb"
}
],
"examples": [
{
"ref": "1831, April 16, Dandy Doricourt, letter to the editors, The New-York mirror, volume 8, issue number 41, page 325",
"text": "[T]he very constitution of society is based upon this volunteer system of paying the piper. Honest men pay the piper for rogues, and full purses for empty ones."
},
{
"ref": "1921, Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton, chapter 10, in The Sisters-In-Law:",
"text": "He wanted to get rich too quickly I suppose. . . . He's got to pay the piper.",
"type": "quote"
},
{
"ref": "2006 June 25, Candice Millard, “The River of Doubt”, in Time:",
"text": "Roosevelt never fully recovered his health, but he refused any regret. \"I am always willing to pay the piper,\" he once wrote, \"when I have had a good dance.\"",
"type": "quote"
}
],
"glosses": [
"To pay a monetary or other debt or experience unfavorable consequences, especially when the payment or consequences are inevitable or a result of something one has enjoyed."
],
"id": "en-pay_the_piper-en-verb-51rSQkav",
"links": [
[
"monetary",
"monetary"
],
[
"debt",
"debt"
],
[
"unfavorable",
"unfavorable"
],
[
"consequences",
"consequences"
],
[
"inevitable",
"inevitable"
]
],
"raw_glosses": [
"(idiomatic) To pay a monetary or other debt or experience unfavorable consequences, especially when the payment or consequences are inevitable or a result of something one has enjoyed."
],
"synonyms": [
{
"_dis1": "10 90",
"sense": "to incur negative consequences of one's decision",
"word": "pay the price"
},
{
"_dis1": "10 90",
"sense": "to incur negative consequences of one's decision",
"word": "pay the penalty"
}
],
"tags": [
"idiomatic"
]
}
],
"sounds": [
{
"audio": "En-au-pay the piper.ogg",
"mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/4/4a/En-au-pay_the_piper.ogg/En-au-pay_the_piper.ogg.mp3",
"ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4a/En-au-pay_the_piper.ogg"
}
],
"word": "pay the piper"
}
{
"categories": [
"English entries with incorrect language header",
"English lemmas",
"English light verb constructions",
"English multiword terms",
"English predicates",
"English verbs",
"Pages with 1 entry",
"Pages with entries"
],
"etymology_text": "Sense 1 is from the English phrase who pays the piper calls the tune; sense 2 may allude to the pied piper.",
"forms": [
{
"form": "pays the piper",
"tags": [
"present",
"singular",
"third-person"
]
},
{
"form": "paying the piper",
"tags": [
"participle",
"present"
]
},
{
"form": "paid the piper",
"tags": [
"participle",
"past"
]
},
{
"form": "paid the piper",
"tags": [
"past"
]
}
],
"head_templates": [
{
"args": {
"1": "pay<,,paid> the piper"
},
"expansion": "pay the piper (third-person singular simple present pays the piper, present participle paying the piper, simple past and past participle paid the piper)",
"name": "en-verb"
}
],
"lang": "English",
"lang_code": "en",
"pos": "verb",
"senses": [
{
"categories": [
"English idioms",
"English terms with quotations",
"Quotation templates to be cleaned"
],
"examples": [
{
"ref": "1898 August 1, Swami Vivekananda, “To Swami Brahmananda”, in The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda:",
"text": "Those that pay the piper must command the tune.",
"type": "quote"
},
{
"ref": "1905, George Bernard Shaw, Major Barbara:",
"text": "Be off with you, my boy, and play with your caucuses and leading articles and historic parties and great leaders and burning questions and the rest of your toys. I am going back to my counting house to pay the piper and call the tune.",
"type": "quote"
}
],
"glosses": [
"To pay expenses for something, and thus be in a position to be in control."
],
"links": [
[
"expense",
"expense"
],
[
"control",
"control"
]
],
"raw_glosses": [
"(idiomatic) To pay expenses for something, and thus be in a position to be in control."
],
"tags": [
"idiomatic"
]
},
{
"categories": [
"English idioms",
"English terms with quotations",
"Quotation templates to be cleaned"
],
"examples": [
{
"ref": "1831, April 16, Dandy Doricourt, letter to the editors, The New-York mirror, volume 8, issue number 41, page 325",
"text": "[T]he very constitution of society is based upon this volunteer system of paying the piper. Honest men pay the piper for rogues, and full purses for empty ones."
},
{
"ref": "1921, Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton, chapter 10, in The Sisters-In-Law:",
"text": "He wanted to get rich too quickly I suppose. . . . He's got to pay the piper.",
"type": "quote"
},
{
"ref": "2006 June 25, Candice Millard, “The River of Doubt”, in Time:",
"text": "Roosevelt never fully recovered his health, but he refused any regret. \"I am always willing to pay the piper,\" he once wrote, \"when I have had a good dance.\"",
"type": "quote"
}
],
"glosses": [
"To pay a monetary or other debt or experience unfavorable consequences, especially when the payment or consequences are inevitable or a result of something one has enjoyed."
],
"links": [
[
"monetary",
"monetary"
],
[
"debt",
"debt"
],
[
"unfavorable",
"unfavorable"
],
[
"consequences",
"consequences"
],
[
"inevitable",
"inevitable"
]
],
"raw_glosses": [
"(idiomatic) To pay a monetary or other debt or experience unfavorable consequences, especially when the payment or consequences are inevitable or a result of something one has enjoyed."
],
"tags": [
"idiomatic"
]
}
],
"sounds": [
{
"audio": "En-au-pay the piper.ogg",
"mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/4/4a/En-au-pay_the_piper.ogg/En-au-pay_the_piper.ogg.mp3",
"ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4a/En-au-pay_the_piper.ogg"
}
],
"synonyms": [
{
"sense": "to control by paying for",
"word": "pay the fiddler"
},
{
"sense": "to incur negative consequences of one's decision",
"word": "pay the price"
},
{
"sense": "to incur negative consequences of one's decision",
"word": "pay the penalty"
}
],
"word": "pay the piper"
}
Download raw JSONL data for pay the piper meaning in All languages combined (3.8kB)
This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable All languages combined dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-11-06 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-10-02 using wiktextract (fbeafe8 and 7f03c9b). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.
If you use this data in academic research, please cite Tatu Ylonen: Wiktextract: Wiktionary as Machine-Readable Structured Data, Proceedings of the 13th Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC), pp. 1317-1325, Marseille, 20-25 June 2022. Linking to the relevant page(s) under https://kaikki.org would also be greatly appreciated.