Word.ws English Dictionary

pony up

pony up verb: to pay (usually a bill, debt or due).

Verb

pony up (third-person singular simple present ponies up, present participle ponying up, simple past and past participle ponied up)

  1. (intransitive, slang, transitive) To pay (usually a bill, debt or due).
    • Every man, save Silvy, vociferously swore that he had ponied up his "quarter:" whereupon the landlady observed that Silvy the less had not paid his reckoning.1824 September, “Paunch Hogabout”, in The Atlantic Magazine, volume 1, number 5, page 343
    • Know what I'd do with that dough ... if I'd the luck to have it?¶ I'd buy War Bonds—and, God, would I hang onto them! (Bonds buy guns—and give you four bucks for your three) ... I'd pony up for taxes cheerfully (knowing they're the cheapest way to pay for this war) ... I'd sock some in the savings...1944 February 7, War Advertising Council, “Advert”, in Life, volume 16, number 6, page 123

Synonyms of pony up

9 more synonymsFewer synonyms

All synonyms of pony up

Forms of pony up

third-person singular presentponies up
present participleponying up
past participleponied up
pastponied up

Origin of pony up

Originally often poney. US early 19th century. According to Michael Quinion, probably not from the monetary sense of pony and instead from Latin "Legem pone mihi Domine viam iustificationum tuarum" (“Teach me, O Lord, the way of thy statutes”), a line from Psalm 119, verses of which are traditionally used in prayer in Anglican churches on the 25th of the month, becoming associated particularly with March 25th, a traditional day of debt settlement. This etymology has been accepted by the American Heritage Dictionary.

Questions about pony up

What does pony up mean?
Pony up means to pay (usually a bill, debt or due).
What part of speech is pony up?
Pony up is a verb.
What is the past tense of pony up?
The past tense of pony up is ponied up.

Words near pony up in the dictionary

  1. pony shoes
  2. pony tail
  3. pony tails
  4. pony truck
  5. pony trucks
  6. pony up
  7. pony wall
  8. pony walls
  9. pony-fucker
  10. pony-fuckers
  11. pony-tail

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: pony up (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.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-au-pony up.ogg.

Cite this entry: “pony up.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/pony_up. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.