repay - Wiktionary, the free dictionary (original) (raw)

From Wiktionary, the free dictionary

From Old French repaier (“to pay back”), from re- + paiier (“to pay”), from Latin pācāre (“to settle, to make peaceful”), from pāx (“peace”) + -ō (forming verbs). Equivalent to re- +‎ pay. Cognate with repacify and French repayer (“to pay again”).

repay (third-person singular simple present repays, present participle repaying, simple past and past participle repaid)

  1. Synonym of pay back in all senses.
    I finally repaid my student loans, just before sending my kids to college.
    I'll repay this wrong asap.
    • 1707, Isaac Watts, “Godly Sorrow ariſing from the Sufferings of Chriſt”, in Hymns and Spiritual Songs, London: J. Humfreys, page 86:
      But drops of Grief can ne’re repay / The debt of Love I owe, […]
    • 1962 April, “Talking of Trains: Short-sighted approach to profits?”, in Modern Railways, page 219:
      On the results of the Kent Coast electrification, which is known to be repaying so far a satisfactory return on the investment in it, a Waterloo-Bournemouth scheme shows reasonable financial promise.
    • 1973, Billy Paul, “Thanks for Saving My Life”, in War of the Gods:
      I was low as low could go / Could not stand anymore / Oh, I could never, never / Never, never repay you
    • 2025 November 13, Kamala Thiagarajan, “If you're going to be kind to another human, today is the day to do it!”, in NPR‎[1]:
      Returning to the school years later, Diakabana discovered it was a school guard. She wanted to repay him. "He told me to help others when I could, so I launched a scholarship program," says Diakabana, who now lives in Switzerland and is co-founder of The Luminous Agency, which focuses on digital literacy.
  2. (transitive) To make worthwhile; to yield a result worth the effort; to pay off.
    • 2013, M. Pavone-MacAluso, Testicular Cancer and Other Tumors of the Genitourinary Tract, page 517:
      The possible importance of excessive androgen secretion and the ingestion of agents such as the fluorenamines may repay further investigation.
  3. (transitive) To give in return; requite.

repay (third-person singular simple present repays, present participle repaying, simple past and past participle repayed or repaid)

  1. (nautical) To pay (cover with tar, pitch, etc.) again.