Word.ws English Dictionary

paid the piper

paid the piper is the simple past and past participle of pay the piper.

Meaning of pay the piper

Verb

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

  1. (idiomatic) To pay expenses for something, and thus be in a position to be in control.
    • Those that pay the piper must command the tune.1898 August 1, Swami Vivekananda, “To Swami Brahmananda”, in The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda
    Synonyms:
    pay the fiddler
  2. (idiomatic) To pay a monetary or other debt or experience unfavorable consequences, especially when the payment or consequences are inevitable or a result of something one has enjoyed.
    • [T]he very constitution of society is based upon this volunteer system of paying the piper. Honest men pay the piper for rogues, and full purses for empty ones.1831, April 16, Dandy Doricourt, letter to the editors, The New-York mirror, volume 8, issue number 41, page 325

Questions about paid the piper

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

Words near paid the piper in the dictionary

  1. paid someone's way
  2. paid the bills
  3. paid the fiddler
  4. paid the freight
  5. paid the penalty
  6. paid the piper
  7. paid the price
  8. paid the rent
  9. paid the ultimate price
  10. paid through the nose
  11. paid to play

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: paid the piper (page history and authors); pay the piper (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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