Word.ws English Dictionary

pay one's own way

pay one's own way verb: to pay for oneself, not relying on the generosity of others.

Verb

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

  1. To pay for oneself, not relying on the generosity of others.
    • He paid his own way through community college and then transferred to a state university.
  2. Synonym of pay for itself.
    • Any in-house product development must pay its own way.
    Synonyms:
    pay for itself

Synonyms of pay one's own way

Forms of pay one's own way

third-person singular presentpays one's own way
present participlepaying one's own way
past participlepaid one's own way
pastpaid one's own way

Questions about pay one's own way

What does pay one's own way mean?
Pay one's own way means to pay for oneself, not relying on the generosity of others.
What part of speech is pay one's own way?
Pay one's own way is a verb.
What is the past tense of pay one's own way?
The past tense of pay one's own way is paid one's own way.

Words near pay one's own way in the dictionary

  1. pay one's addresses
  2. pay one's debt to society
  3. pay one's dues
  4. pay one's last respects
  5. pay one's own freight
  6. pay one's own way
  7. pay one's respects
  8. pay one's way
  9. pay or okay
  10. pay or play
  11. pay out

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: pay one's own 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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