pay off

A1 Topic:Money & Finance Phrasal verb

Base verb: pay

Meanings

1
verb
to produce a useful or successful result
Phrasal verb · Intransitive

pay off

Usage: The effort or investment is the subject; this successful-result sense has no direct object.

Months of careful practice paid off when the choir won the regional competition.
Sources and attribution

OpenAI Codex authors; independent AI editorial review recorded in the corpus review archive. — Original project editorial material; cleared for The Missing Workbook
- The Missing Workbook: original construction review
Months of careful practice paid off when the choir won the regional competition.
2
verb
to finish repaying a debt
Phrasal verb · Separable

pay something off / pay off something

Usage: For debt repayment, place a pronoun before off. The successful-result sense is intransitive: hard work can pay off.

The final payment was enough to pay off the small loan.
Sources and attribution

OpenAI Codex authors; independent AI editorial review recorded in the corpus review archive. — Original project editorial material; cleared for The Missing Workbook
- The Missing Workbook: original construction review
The final payment was enough to pay off the small loan.

Verb forms

Verb forms are not available for this word yet.

Thesaurus

Word family

Forms paid off

Related forms pay

Topics

Money & Finance

External links

# pay off

**Type:** Word
**Level:** A1
**Part of speech:** verb

## Meanings
1. to produce a useful or successful result
2. to finish repaying a debt

## Usage Notes
- to produce a useful or successful result: The effort or investment is the subject; this successful-result sense has no direct object.
- to finish repaying a debt: For debt repayment, place a pronoun before off. The successful-result sense is intransitive: hard work can pay off.

## Examples
- Months of careful practice paid off when the choir won the regional competition.
- The final payment was enough to pay off the small loan.
- Months of careful practice paid off when the choir won the regional competition.
- The final payment was enough to pay off the small loan.

## Related Forms
- pay

## Learning Sources
Adapted from Wiktionary contributors, with original notes and examples. Learning notes: [CC BY-SA 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/).
- [The Missing Workbook: original construction review](https://github.com/barisozmen/rails_english)

## Topics
- Money & Finance

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