Payback

How to spell payback

7 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce payback

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does payback mean?

1. nounRetaliation or revenge for an earlier injury or wrong.
2. nounThe return of money invested, or the time taken to recover that investment.

Payback in a sentence

• The prank felt like payback for the embarrassment he caused her last week.

• The solar panels promise a payback within eight years through lower bills.

• Losing the contract to a former colleague seemed like bitter payback.

• Managers approved the upgrade because the payback period was so short.

Where does payback come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This is a modern English compound formed simply by joining the everyday verb 'pay' with the adverb 'back', both of which are deeply native words. 'Pay' itself arrived in English from Old French 'paier', which traces to the Latin 'pacare', meaning 'to pacify' or 'to satisfy', because settling a debt soothed a creditor; that Latin root is the same one behind 'peace'. 'Back', by contrast, is a thoroughly Germanic word from Old English 'bæc', referring to the rear of the body and, by extension, the idea of returning something to its source. Joined together in the twentieth century, chiefly in American business and slang, 'payback' first described the money or benefit returned on an investment and then quickly took on the figurative sense of getting even with someone. The spelling is straightforward since both parts are familiar; the only trap is remembering to write it as one solid word rather than two.

How the word is built

• pay (to give money owed)
• back (in return)