pay one's respects
pay one's respects verb: to grieve or mourn a person to a degree appropriate for one's relationship; to attend someone's funeral.
Verb
pay one's respects (third-person singular simple present pays one's respects, present participle paying one's respects, simple past and past participle paid one's respects)
- To grieve or mourn a person to a degree appropriate for one's relationship; to attend someone's funeral.
- Mr. Bruni told journalists that, as of Monday evening, Pope Francis' closest collaborators have begun to pay their respects to the late Pope.2025 April 21, Devin Watkins, “Pope Francis has died on Easter Monday aged 88”, in Vatican News
Forms of pay one's respects
| third-person singular present | pays one's respects |
|---|---|
| present participle | paying one's respects |
| past participle | paid one's respects |
| past | paid one's respects |
Questions about pay one's respects
- What does pay one's respects mean?
- Pay one's respects means to grieve or mourn a person to a degree appropriate for one's relationship; to attend someone's funeral.
- What part of speech is pay one's respects?
- Pay one's respects is a verb.
- What is the past tense of pay one's respects?
- The past tense of pay one's respects is paid one's respects.
Words near pay one's respects in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: pay one's respects (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.
Last updated:
Cite this entry: “pay one's respects.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/pay_one%27s_respects. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.