Word.ws English Dictionary

pays back

pays back is the third-person singular simple present indicative of pay back.

Meaning of pay back

Verb

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

  1. (transitive) To pay (a debt or the lender) so as to provide the entire amount of money owed.
    • Douglas: Roy, give me £20.
      Roy: What?
      Douglas: Give me £20. I'll pay you back.2008 November 21, Graham Linehan, The IT Crowd, Season 3, Episode 1
  2. (figuratively) To avenge, to exact revenge.
    • He paid her back with interest, avenging his father's murder with nine degrees of reprisal.

Questions about pays back

What is pays back the third-person singular simple present indicative of?
Pays back is the third-person singular simple present indicative of pay back.

Words near pays back in the dictionary

  1. payrun
  2. payruns
  3. pays
  4. pays a visit
  5. pays attention
  6. pays back
  7. pays back in someone's own coin
  8. pays d'état
  9. Pays de la Loire
  10. pays dearly
  11. pays dividends

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: pays back (page history and authors); pay back (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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