Repay

//ɹiˈpeɪ// verb

verb ·Moderate ·College level

Definitions

Verb
  1. 1
    Synonym of pay back in all senses.

    "I finally repaid my student loans, just before sending my kids to college."

  2. 2
    To pay (cover with tar, pitch, etc.) again.
  3. 3
    answer back wordnet
  4. 4
    To make worthwhile; to yield a result worth the effort; to pay off. transitive

    "The possible importance of excessive androgen secretion and the ingestion of agents such as the fluorenamines may repay further investigation."

  5. 5
    pay back wordnet
Show 3 more definitions
  1. 6
    To give in return; requite. transitive
  2. 7
    make repayment for or return something wordnet
  3. 8
    act or give recompense in recognition of someone's behavior or actions wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms
refundrequiterewardaccordamendsatone

Example

More examples

"I've got to get some money somehow to repay the bank loan."

Etymology

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”).

Related phrases

pay back

More for "repay"

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.