Green’s Dictionary of Slang

to beat severely.

1785, 1788, 1796		Grose Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue n.p.: Pay [...] to beat; I will pay you as Paul paid the Ephesians, over face and eyes, and all your d—d jaws.
1811		Lex. Balatronicum [as cit. 1785].

to attack, to lay into.

1902

H. Baumann Londinismen (2nd edn).

1. to take revenge upon, to give (someone) their deserts, to punch.

1838		T. Haliburton Clockmaker II 231: He follered us down, lookin like a proper fool. I’ll pay you up for this, said he.
1849		Thackeray Dr. Birch in Miscellanies (1869) 416: You see if I don’t pay you out after school – you sneak you!
1881-2		T.B. Reed Fifth Form at St Dominic’s (1890) 149: [W]hereat the speaker hurriedly quitted his seat and, amid howls and yells, proceeded to ‘pay out’ Spicer.
1888		‘Rolf Boldrewood’ Robbery Under Arms (1922) 271: I sent word to him I’d pay him out one of these fine days [...] and he’ll find that Dan Moran can keep his word.
1893–4		H. Lawson ‘Stiffner and Jim’ in Roderick (1972) 127: I had a down on Stiffner, and meant to pay him out.
1900		Boy’s Own Paper 20 Oct. 38: We’d pay him out for talking to us like that.
1911		Gem 23 Sept. iii: You little beast. I’ll pay you out for this!
1936		‘Josephine Tey’ Shilling for Candles 22: ‘Well, just to pay her out for treating me like bits on the cutting-room floor, I’m going to split on her’.
1946		D. Stivens Courtship of Uncle Henry 73: I thought maybe Thompson was paying her out; he hardly slung her a word all afternoon.
1958		A. Sillitoe Sat. Night and Sun. Morning 77: I’ll pay you out one day.
1973		G.V. Higgins Digger’s Game (1981) 108: Digger paid him out.

2. (Aus.) to tell off, to reprimand, thus as n.

1967		‘Whisper All Aussie Dict.’ in Kings Cross Whisper (Sydney) xxxviii 10/1: pay out: To roast, to burn, to cook, to air raid.
1983		R. Aven-Bray Ridgey-Didge Oz Jack Lang 40: Pay Out Castigate.
1990		Tupper & Wortley Aus. Prison Sl. Gloss. 🌐 Pay. Abuse. As in ‘to give someone a pay’ or ‘to pay out on someone’.
1991		R.G. Barrett Between the Devlin 60: [S]he too joined in the payout on the driver.
2007		D. McDonald Luck in the Greater West (2008) 208: He didn’t laugh or pay-out when Charlie couldn’t get it right.
2013		T. Peacock More You Bet 8: To verbally abuse someone [was] a ‘payout’.

to give someone a serious beating about the head.

1860		Hotten Dict. of Modern Sl. etc. (2nd edn) 187: To pay over face and eyes, as the cat did the monkey.
1873		Sl. Dict. 248: Pay to beat a person, or “serve him out.” [...] “to PAY over face and eyes, as the cat did the monkey”.

to thrash, to beat severely.

1937–84

Partridge DSUE (1984) 231/1: C.16–18.

(Aus.) a ticket-office.

1885

Bulletin (Sydney) 31 Jan. 12/1: Once we used to consider it the acme of glory to stalk, with haughty mien, free into the theatre, whilst Ministers of the Crown were humbly parting their ochre at the pay-hole.

1. (US campus) to have sexual intercourse.

1986		Salt-N-Pepa ‘Tramp’ 🎵 You ain’t gettin paid, you ain’t knockin boots.
1996		Eble Sl. and Sociability 51: Slang provides numerous verbs for ‘to engage in sexual intercourse’. Among those recently in use on college campuses are bounce refrigerators, bump uglies, do the naked pretzel, get paid, knock boots, scrog, and scrump.

2. (US) to obtain money, not necessarily by working for it.

1986		C. Stroud Close Pursuit (1988) 100: ‘Shit, man. Get paid and get some pussy too.’ [...] Get paid and get laid but don’t get made, that was the creed.
1991		N. George ‘CPT Time’ in Buppies, B-Boys, Baps and Bohos (1994) 62: They aren’t going to get paid grabbing their groins and yelling, ‘New York is fat!’.
1999		‘Master Pimp’ Pimp’s Rap 22: So what’s happening? You wanna get laid or you wanna get paid?
2002		‘Touré’ Portable Promised Land (ms.) 157: We Words (My Favorite Things) [...] Get paid. Get money. Goin off.
2012		(con. 1971) M.F. Armstrong They Wished They Were Honest 95: ‘I don’t do it very often. When I get a case that’s good, I want to get paid.’.
2010		W.D. Myers Lockdown 101: I got to chill for a few years until I can figure out a way to get paid.

3. (US black) to get what one deserves, e.g. professional success.

1995

L. Stavsky et al. A2Z.

to be ready at any time to have sex.

1811		Lex. Balatronicum n.p.: Bill at Sight. To pay a bill at sight; to be ready at all times for the venereal act.
1823		Egan Grose’s Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue.

(US) to use the services of a prostitute.

1969

‘Iceberg Slim’ Mama Black Widow 121: Railhead was just another pay and lay customer.

1. to continue, to go on with, esp. of a story that is being told.

1670		J. Eachard Contempt of Clergy in Arber Garner vii, 308: Who [...] think, had they but licence and authority to preach, O how they could pay it away! and that they can tell the people such strange things, as they never heard before, in all their lives [F&H].
1864, 1867, 1870		Hotten Sl. Dict. 197: pay-away ‘go on with your story, or discourse.’ From the nautical phvase PAY-AWAY, meaning to allow a rope to run out of a vessel.
1874		‘A.P.’ [Arthur Pember] Mysteries and Miseries 307: ‘Pay away at it! [i.e. singing] I’m smothered if the Opera-House isn’t your proper hemisphere. Keep it up. Hooray!’.

2. to fight manfully.

1785, 1788, 1796		Grose Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue.
1811		Lex. Balatronicum.
1823		‘Jon Bee’ Dict. of the Turf, the Ring, the Chase, etc. 133: Pay-away (ring); when one man gets disabled, by a stunning blow or otherwise, the other ‘sarves him out,’ fast and quick, by paying away at his jolly-nob, ribs, and bread-basket.

3. to eat voraciously.

1785, 1788, 1796		Grose Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue.
1811		Lex. Balatronicum.
1823		Egan Grose’s Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue.

(UK Und.) to return stolen goods.

1719		in A. Smith Lives of the Most Notorious Highwaymen.
1768		(con. 1710–25) Tyburn Chronicle II in Groom (1999) xxviii: To Pay-back To return Stolen Goods.
1786		Whole Art of Thieving [as cit. 1768].

see separate entries.

see under gammon n.²

(US) to pay, to bear the expense.

1934		S. Walker City Editor 141: [H]is publisher, who may be savant, merchant, or the reincarnation of Richard the Lion-Hearted, but who pays the freight.
1952		I, Mobster 69: But why should you have to pay the freight for everything?
1959		‘Paul Merchant’ ‘Sex Gang’ in Pulling a Train’ (2012) [ebook] The old man had taken the vacuum cleaner money to pay the freight.
1967		M. Williams Jazz Masters 29: Apparently, the management had trouble persuading the public that the music [i.e. jazz] was supposed to be danced to, but it hung on. It had two other ballrooms in the building offering waltzes which helped to pay the freight.

to pay over the odds for something one desires, lit. or fig. uses.

1779		Franklin Works (1840) II 182: Poor man, said I, you pay too much for your whistle .
1791		Chester Chron. 28 Jan. 2/1: I saw a beautiful, sweet-tempered girl, married to an ill-natured brute of a busband, what a pity it is [...] she paid too much for the whistle.
1797		Hants. Chron. 23 Sept. 3/1: I met with many who gave too much for the whistle [...] Poor man, says I, you do indeed pay too much for your whistle.
1837		Southern Literary Messenger III 176/2: That, rejoined he, would be paying too dear for the whistle .
1859		Galway Mercury 18 June 2/4: Under such a system as this, surely the rate-payers are ‘paying too much for the whistle’.
1863		Hants. Advertiser 14 Nov. 4/1: [heading] Paying Too Much for the Northern Whistle [...] The cost of the American Civil War [etc].
1873		Sl. Dict. 339: ‘To pay for the whistle,’ to pay extravagantly for any fancy.
1878		Harper’s Mag. Jan. 199: When respectable people like the Mayor of the city of Hot Springs and his friends got drunk, they should pay for their whistle .
1883		Salt Lake Herald (UT) 23 Nov. 8/2: Some of the books are very useful, but in nine cases out of ten, the people buying them have had to pay ‘too much for their whistle’.
1892		Red Cloud Chief (Webster Co., NE) 13 May 4/2: There is no such thing as paying too much for whistles - and harmony.
1895		C. Crowe Aus. Sl. Dict. 95: ‘to pay for one’s whistle,’ to pay too well for your fancy.
1902		Commoner (Lincoln, NE) 30 May 3/3: Are the American people ‘paying too much for their whistle?’.
1917		Goodwin’s Wkly (Salt lake City, UT) 3 Mar. 7/2: Common sense Americans do ’t want to pay too much for either whistle.
1920		Eve. Public Ledger (Phila., PA) 11 Aug. 7/1: When I saw an ambitious man courting favors and doing things to gain them, I said to myself, ‘This man gives too much for his whistle’.
1921		Colville Examiner (WA) 1 Oct. 6/3: No districvt shall be required to pay too much for its educational whistle.

used to describe an evasive act or statement.

1909

J. Ware Passing Eng. of the Victorian Era.