To pay is defined as to give someone what is due, usually money, for goods or services.
(verb)An example of to pay is giving money to a server at a restaurant for a meal.
See pay in Webster's New World College Dictionary
transitive verb paid or Obsoletepayed, paying
Origin: ME paien, to pay, satisfy < OFr paier < L pacare, to pacify < pax, peace
intransitive verb
noun
adjective
See pay in American Heritage Dictionary 4
verb paid paid (pād), pay·ing, pays verb, transitive
Origin:
Origin: Middle English paien
Origin: , from Old French paiier
Origin: , from Late Latin pācāre, to appease
Origin: , from Latin, to pacify, subdue
Origin: , from pāx, pāc-, peace; see pag- in Indo-European roots
. Word History: Given the unpeaceful feelings one often has in paying bills or income taxes, it is difficult to believe that the word pay ultimately derives from the Latin word pāx, “peace.” However, it is not the peace of the one who pays that is involved in this development of meaning. From pāx, meaning “peace” and also “a settlement of hostilities,” was derived the word pācāre, “to impose a settlement on peoples or territories.” In Late Latin pācāre was extended in sense to mean “to appease.” The Old French word paiier that developed from Latin pācāre came to have the specific application “to pacify or satisfy a creditor,” a sense that came into Middle English along with the word paien (first recorded around the beginning of the 13th century), the ancestor of our word pay.transitive verb payed payed or paid (pād), pay·ing, pays
Origin:
Origin: Obsolete French peier
Origin: , from Old French
Origin: , from Latin picāre
Origin: , from pix, pic-, pitch
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