Word.ws English Dictionary

paid for one's whistle

paid for one's whistle is the simple past and past participle of pay for one's whistle.

Meaning of pay for one's whistle

Verb

pay for one's whistle (third-person singular simple present pays for one's whistle, present participle paying for one's whistle, simple past and past participle paid for one's whistle)

  1. (dated) To pay dearly for one's caprice.
    • […] the ship may be on shore before the leader of the band can be convinced how dearly he has "paid for his whistle."1836, William Nugent Glascock, The Naval Service, page 239

Questions about paid for one's whistle

What is paid for one's whistle the simple past and past participle of?
Paid for one's whistle is the simple past and past participle of pay for one's whistle.

Words near paid for one's whistle in the dictionary

  1. paid back in someone's own coin
  2. paid dearly
  3. paid dividends
  4. paid down
  5. paid for itself
  6. paid for one's whistle
  7. paid forward
  8. paid good money after bad
  9. paid heed
  10. paid homage to
  11. paid home

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: paid for one's whistle (page history and authors); pay for one's whistle (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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