Word.ws English Dictionary

paying the freight

paying the freight is the present participle and gerund of pay the freight.

Meaning of pay the freight

Verb

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

  1. To pay for the cost of transport.
  2. (idiomatic) To bear the cost.
    • I don't want to pay the freight on the kind of conspicuous consumption that thrives on Mercedes or Jaguars.1990, J. A. Jance, Minor in Possession, page 168

Questions about paying the freight

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

Words near paying the freight in the dictionary

  1. paying overs
  2. paying respect
  3. paying someone's way
  4. paying the bills
  5. paying the fiddler
  6. paying the freight
  7. paying the penalty
  8. paying the piper
  9. paying the price
  10. paying the rent
  11. paying the ultimate price

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: paying the freight (page history and authors); pay the freight (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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