Word.ws English Dictionary

paying it forward

paying it forward is the present participle and gerund 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 paying it forward

What is paying it forward the present participle and gerund of?
Paying it forward is the present participle and gerund of pay it forward.

Words near paying it forward in the dictionary

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

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: paying 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: “paying it forward.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/paying_it_forward. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.