Word.ws English Dictionary

underpaying

underpaying is the present participle and gerund of underpay.

Meaning of underpay

Verb

underpay (third-person singular simple present underpays, present participle underpaying, simple past and past participle underpaid)

  1. (transitive) To pay (someone) less than the value of their work; to pay (someone) insufficiently.
    • The company-city subgenre always seemed to star a hero who outsmarted, overthrew, or escaped "the company." I've never seen one where the hero fought like hell to get taken in and underpaid by the company.1993, Octavia Butler, chapter 11, in The Parable of the Sower
  2. (transitive) To pay less than is due for (something).
    • The underpaid letter was returned to the sender.

Questions about underpaying

What is underpaying the present participle and gerund of?
Underpaying is the present participle and gerund of underpay.

Words near underpaying in the dictionary

  1. underpasteurized
  2. underpatronized
  3. underpay
  4. underpayer
  5. underpayers
  6. underpaying
  7. underpayment
  8. underpayments
  9. underpays
  10. underpeep
  11. underpeeped

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: underpaying (page history and authors); underpay (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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Cite this entry: “underpaying.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/underpaying. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.