Pay

How to spell pay

3 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce pay

What does pay mean?

1. verbTo give money in exchange for goods, services, or to settle a debt.
2. nounMoney received for work; wages or salary.

Pay in a sentence

• verb

  The company will pay every invoice within thirty days.

• noun

  The union demanded better pay for night-shift staff.

• verb

  Customers can pay by card or by bank transfer.

• noun

  Her new role came with a generous pay rise.

Where does pay come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word travelled into English through Old French during the 1200s, where the verb was 'paier', and behind that stood the Latin verb 'pacare', which literally meant 'to pacify' or 'to make peaceful'. That Latin verb grew directly from 'pax', the word for 'peace', the same root that gives us 'pacify' and 'pact'. The link makes surprising sense once you picture the original idea: to pay a creditor was to satisfy and calm someone you owed, settling a debt so the relationship was at peace again. Over time the sense of soothing faded and the purely financial meaning of handing over money took over, although the older flavour survives in expressions about paying respect or paying attention. The short modern spelling hides this peaceful Latin ancestry entirely, which is part of why few people guess the connection.

How the word is built

• pay (from Latin pacare, to pacify or satisfy a creditor)