Word.ws English Dictionary

paid it forward

paid it forward is the simple past and past participle of pay it forward.

Meaning of pay it forward

Verb

pay it forward (third-person singular simple present pays it forward, present participle paying it forward, simple past and past participle paid it forward)

  1. Synonym of pay forward.
    • The study authors, citing other examples of "pay it forward" kindness at fast food restaurants and their own experiments encouraging subjects to help others, write: "Why, in the absence of external sanctions and opportunities for reciprocation, do people help strangers? One possible explanation is...2025 November 13, Kamala Thiagarajan, “If you're going to be kind to another human, today is the day to do it!”, in NPR
    Synonyms:
    pay forward

Questions about paid it forward

What is paid it forward the simple past and past participle of?
Paid it forward is the simple past and past participle of pay it forward.

Words near paid it forward in the dictionary

  1. paid forward
  2. paid good money after bad
  3. paid heed
  4. paid homage to
  5. paid home
  6. paid it forward
  7. paid nature's debt
  8. paid no heed
  9. paid no mind
  10. paid off
  11. paid off old scores

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: paid it forward (page history and authors); pay it forward (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: “paid it forward.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/paid_it_forward. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.