buy and pay for
buy and pay for verb: used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see buy, pay, for.
Verb
buy and pay for (third-person singular simple present buys and pays for, present participle buying and paying for, simple past and past participle bought and paid for)
- Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see buy, pay, for.
- To bribe or corrupt with money from special interests; to obtain by bribery.
- I presume that the lobbyists of those interests who can afford to buy and pay for special privileges, will read with a great deal of glee that this is now the order of the day.1952 October 12, Joseph M. Barr, “Letters to the Editor”, in The Pittsburgh Press
- The problem was, C.C. had a way of surrounding himself with people he'd bought and paid for, so I suppose you can't really blame him for being a bit confused.2002, David L. Dukes, The First Black President Blues, →ISBN, page 87
Forms of buy and pay for
| third-person singular present | buys and pays for |
|---|---|
| present participle | buying and paying for |
| past participle | bought and paid for |
| past | bought and paid for |
Origin of buy and pay for
In the sense "bribe, corrupt", the verb is much rarer than and is probably a back-formation from the adjective bought and paid for.
Questions about buy and pay for
- What does buy and pay for mean?
- Buy and pay for means used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see buy, pay, for.
- What part of speech is buy and pay for?
- Buy and pay for is a verb.
- What is the past tense of buy and pay for?
- The past tense of buy and pay for is bought and paid for.
Words near buy and pay for in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: buy and pay for (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
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Cite this entry: “buy and pay for.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/buy_and_pay_for. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.