Word.ws English Dictionary

paid one's way

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

Meaning of pay one's way

Verb

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

  1. Of an individual or business, to earn enough to cover one's expenses.
    • The train service averaged four trains each way on weekdays, and a single Sunday train in each direction, but though the line continued to pay its way until the first world war, immediately afterwards receipts dropped to such an extent that on February 8, 1924, a meeting was called to consider...1952 May, James I. C. Boyd, “The Ballycastle Railway”, in Railway Magazine, page 342

Questions about paid one's way

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

Words near paid one's way in the dictionary

  1. paid one's debt to society
  2. paid one's dues
  3. paid one's own freight
  4. paid one's own way
  5. paid one's respects
  6. paid one's way
  7. paid out
  8. paid overs
  9. paid respect
  10. paid someone's way
  11. paid the bills

Source and license

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