Word.ws English Dictionary

surpay

surpay verb: to more than compensate for; to outweigh.

Verb

surpay (third-person singular simple present surpays, present participle surpaying, simple past and past participle surpaid)

  1. (obsolete) To more than compensate for; to outweigh.
    • for foure faire ones we must kisse fiftie foule: and to a nice or tender stomack, as are those of mine age, one ill kisse doth, surpay [translating surpaie] one good.1603, Michel de Montaigne, translated by John Florio, Essays, III.5

Forms of surpay

third-person singular presentsurpays
present participlesurpaying
past participlesurpaid
pastsurpaid

Origin of surpay

From sur- + pay.

Questions about surpay

What does surpay mean?
Surpay means to more than compensate for; to outweigh.
What part of speech is surpay?
Surpay is a verb.
What is the past tense of surpay?
The past tense of surpay is surpaid.

Words near surpay in the dictionary

  1. surpassing
  2. surpassingly
  3. surpassingness
  4. surpassings
  5. surpassive
  6. surpay
  7. surpays
  8. surpeti
  9. surpetis
  10. surplice
  11. surpliced

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: surpay (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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