paying the ultimate price

Verb

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

1. To die as a result of a fatal choice or decision, or because of deep commitments.
   • On the East and West Coast Main Lines in the 1950s/60s, for example, we saw the extinction of intermediate stations in order to create the same sort of accelerations that IRP is now promising. Back then, the priority was faster main line services, with wayside/intermediate stations paying the...2022 January 12, Nigel Harris, “Comment: Unhappy start to 2022”, in RAIL, number 948, page 3