Word.ws English Dictionary

paying one's respects

paying one's respects is the present participle and gerund of pay one's respects.

Meaning of pay one's respects

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)

  1. 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

Questions about paying one's respects

What is paying one's respects the present participle and gerund of?
Paying one's respects is the present participle and gerund of pay one's respects.

Words near paying one's respects in the dictionary

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

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: paying one's respects (page history and authors); 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.

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