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say it: pay
pay is a verb and noun meaning "give money, usually in exchange for goods or services". It is pronounced /ˈpeɪ/ — pay. It carries 12 recorded senses.
convey, as of a compliment, regards, attention, etc.; bestow
“Don't pay him any mind”
“give the orders”
“Give him my best regards”
“pay attention”
do or give something to somebody in return
“Does she pay you for the work you are doing?”
bear (a cost or penalty), in recompense for some action
“You'll pay for this!”
“She had to pay the penalty for speaking out rashly”
“You'll pay for this opinion later”
something that remunerates
“wages were paid by check”
“he wasted his pay on drink”
“they saved a quarter of all their earnings”
Forms marked · are formed by the regular rule rather than recorded in the source data. English keeps a few hundred irregulars and the rest follow the pattern, so the rule is right far more often than not — but it is a rule, and the mark says so.
Definitions, synonyms and semantic relations for pay come from Princeton University’s WordNet. The pronunciation comes from the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary. Commonness is measured against a corpus of everyday English. Full sources and licences.