pay back
/peɪ bæk/verb
pay back is spelled P-A-Y-B-A-C-K: 7 letters. As a verb, pay back means “To pay (a debt or the lender) so as to provide the entire amount of money owed” (English Wiktionary, September 2026).
How many letters and syllables are in pay back?
| Letters | 7: P-A-Y-B-A-C-K |
|---|---|
| In writing | a phrase: the frequency list counts single words |
| Wrong spellings searched | none measured in search |
| Pairs people search |
Sources: letters and syllables from the English Wiktionary's hyphenation or pronunciation; written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media); Bing searches in the United States: the average month from September 2025 to August 2026 (Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, read September 30, 2026).
How do you pronounce pay back?
- /peɪ bæk/
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: LL-Q1860_(eng)-Persent101-pay_back.wav, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
Words people confuse with pay back
Word pairs people search, with the monthly searches for “a vs b” (G: Google, B: Bing, United States).
Also written: payback (one word or two).
Sources: Google and Bing searches (September 2025 to August 2026, through DataForSEO); English Wiktionary (homophones, alternative spellings).
Forms of pay back
- pays back present, singular, he/she/it
- paying back participle, present
- paid back participle, past
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
What does pay back mean?
The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).
verb
- 1
To pay (a debt or the lender) so as to provide the entire amount of money owed.
Douglas: Roy, give me £20. Roy: What? Douglas: Give me £20. I'll pay you back.
- 2
To avenge, to exact revenge.
He paid her back with interest, avenging his father's murder with nine degrees of reprisal.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Pay back in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
| Language | Words |
|---|---|
| French | rembourser, rendre , rendre la pareille |
| German | zurückzahlen , sich revanchieren, heimzahlen, sich rächen, vergelten |
| Portuguese | devolver , retribuir |
| Spanish | devolver , hacer pagar, vengarse, desquitarse |
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.