"pay up" meaning in English

See pay up in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Verb

Forms: pays up [present, singular, third-person], paying up [participle, present], paid up [participle, past], paid up [past]
Head templates: {{en-verb|pay<,,paid> up}} pay up (third-person singular simple present pays up, present participle paying up, simple past and past participle paid up)
  1. (intransitive and transitive) To pay in total a sum which is owed, especially when the sum has been owed for a period of time. Tags: intransitive, transitive Synonyms: pay off [transitive]

Inflected forms

{
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "pays up",
      "tags": [
        "present",
        "singular",
        "third-person"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "paying up",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "present"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "paid up",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "paid up",
      "tags": [
        "past"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "pay<,,paid> up"
      },
      "expansion": "pay up (third-person singular simple present pays up, present participle paying up, simple past and past participle paid up)",
      "name": "en-verb"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "verb",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [
            "Entries with incorrect language header",
            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English phrasal verbs formed with \"up\"",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Pages with 1 entry",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Pages with entries",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        }
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "1825 December 14 (date written), Walter Scott, “[Entry dated 14 December 1825]”, in David Douglas, editor, The Journal of Sir Walter Scott […], volume I, Edinburgh: David Douglas, published 1890, →OCLC:",
          "text": "At Whitsunday and Martinmas I will have enough to pay up the incumbrance of £3000 due to old Moss's daughter.",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1851 June – 1852 April, Harriet Beecher Stowe, chapter 21, in Uncle Tom’s Cabin; or, Life among the Lowly, volume (please specify |volume=I or II), Boston, Mass.: John P[unchard] Jewett & Company; Cleveland, Oh.: Jewett, Proctor & Worthington, published 20 March 1852, →OCLC:",
          "text": "\"Suppose we sell off all the horses, and sell one of your farms, and pay up square?\"",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1875, Horatio Alger, chapter 2, in Herbert Carter's Legacy:",
          "text": "We could pay up the mortgage on the house, and have something left over.",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1910, Louis Joseph Vance, chapter 16, in The Fortune Hunter:",
          "text": "The Citizen gained eighteen subscribers; four old ones paid up their accounts.",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1997, Taran Provost, “$25 Million”, in Time:",
          "text": "[T]he decision pushes Simpson's potential financial obligation to a whopping $33.5 million[…]and left Simpson lawyers swearing that there was no way their client could ever pay up.",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2013 June 8, “Obama goes troll-hunting”, in The Economist, volume 407, number 8839, page 55:",
          "text": "According to this saga of intellectual-property misanthropy, these creatures [patent trolls] roam the business world, buying up patents and then using them to demand extravagant payouts from companies they accuse of infringing them. Often, their victims pay up rather than face the costs of a legal battle.",
          "type": "quote"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To pay in total a sum which is owed, especially when the sum has been owed for a period of time."
      ],
      "id": "en-pay_up-en-verb-fggJEffG",
      "links": [
        [
          "in total",
          "in total"
        ],
        [
          "owe",
          "owe"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(intransitive and transitive) To pay in total a sum which is owed, especially when the sum has been owed for a period of time."
      ],
      "synonyms": [
        {
          "tags": [
            "transitive"
          ],
          "word": "pay off"
        }
      ],
      "tags": [
        "intransitive",
        "transitive"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "pay up"
}
{
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "pays up",
      "tags": [
        "present",
        "singular",
        "third-person"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "paying up",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "present"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "paid up",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "paid up",
      "tags": [
        "past"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "pay<,,paid> up"
      },
      "expansion": "pay up (third-person singular simple present pays up, present participle paying up, simple past and past participle paid up)",
      "name": "en-verb"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "verb",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "English entries with incorrect language header",
        "English intransitive verbs",
        "English lemmas",
        "English multiword terms",
        "English phrasal verbs",
        "English phrasal verbs formed with \"up\"",
        "English terms with quotations",
        "English transitive verbs",
        "English verbs",
        "Pages with 1 entry",
        "Pages with entries",
        "Quotation templates to be cleaned"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "1825 December 14 (date written), Walter Scott, “[Entry dated 14 December 1825]”, in David Douglas, editor, The Journal of Sir Walter Scott […], volume I, Edinburgh: David Douglas, published 1890, →OCLC:",
          "text": "At Whitsunday and Martinmas I will have enough to pay up the incumbrance of £3000 due to old Moss's daughter.",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1851 June – 1852 April, Harriet Beecher Stowe, chapter 21, in Uncle Tom’s Cabin; or, Life among the Lowly, volume (please specify |volume=I or II), Boston, Mass.: John P[unchard] Jewett & Company; Cleveland, Oh.: Jewett, Proctor & Worthington, published 20 March 1852, →OCLC:",
          "text": "\"Suppose we sell off all the horses, and sell one of your farms, and pay up square?\"",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1875, Horatio Alger, chapter 2, in Herbert Carter's Legacy:",
          "text": "We could pay up the mortgage on the house, and have something left over.",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1910, Louis Joseph Vance, chapter 16, in The Fortune Hunter:",
          "text": "The Citizen gained eighteen subscribers; four old ones paid up their accounts.",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1997, Taran Provost, “$25 Million”, in Time:",
          "text": "[T]he decision pushes Simpson's potential financial obligation to a whopping $33.5 million[…]and left Simpson lawyers swearing that there was no way their client could ever pay up.",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2013 June 8, “Obama goes troll-hunting”, in The Economist, volume 407, number 8839, page 55:",
          "text": "According to this saga of intellectual-property misanthropy, these creatures [patent trolls] roam the business world, buying up patents and then using them to demand extravagant payouts from companies they accuse of infringing them. Often, their victims pay up rather than face the costs of a legal battle.",
          "type": "quote"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To pay in total a sum which is owed, especially when the sum has been owed for a period of time."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "in total",
          "in total"
        ],
        [
          "owe",
          "owe"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(intransitive and transitive) To pay in total a sum which is owed, especially when the sum has been owed for a period of time."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "intransitive",
        "transitive"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "synonyms": [
    {
      "tags": [
        "transitive"
      ],
      "word": "pay off"
    }
  ],
  "word": "pay up"
}

Download raw JSONL data for pay up meaning in English (3.1kB)


This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-12-15 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-12-04 using wiktextract (8a39820 and 4401a4c). 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.

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