payer cher
\pɛ.je ʃɛʁ\
The verdict
“payer cher” is uncommon French (outside the top frequency list), classed as a verb. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- Unranked
- below top-frequency French
- 10
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Payer quelqu’un très cher.
Corpus desk
Index FR-payer-cher · payer cher · French
payer cher · unranked · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-UNRANKED Unranked
- LEN-MEGA 10 letters
- VOW-4 4 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-THIN "P" thin
- PHOTO-UNK Peer pending
Desk codes from Wiktionary headword shape, FrequencyWords rank tier, confusable-pair count, generated misspelling depth, letter-cohort book size, and photo-finish peer. Not a difficulty grade.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | payer cher |
| Language | French |
| Part of speech | Verb |
| IPA | \pɛ.je ʃɛʁ\ |
| Letters | 10 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Longue queue: rang de « payer cher » en français
Rare enough to double-check
payer cher is uncommon French outside the top frequency list, classed as averb, transcribed \pɛ.je ʃɛʁ\. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. 3 senses are on record.
payer cher has no tracked misspelling variants, a sign its spelling follows regular French conventions. Our confusable-pair dataset has no match for it, since its spelling is unusual enough that it doesn't cluster with a lookalike.
No explicit etymology string is stored for this entry, so spelling patterns must be inferred from the word's phoneme-to-grapheme mapping rather than from a documented borrowing chain. The correct French form is payer cher, spelled P-A-Y-E-R- -C-H-E-R.
Definition
- 1Payer quelqu’un très cher.
- 2Subir des conséquences très douloureuses ou contraignantes en raison d'une faveur obtenue ou d'un geste posé.
- 3Être prêt à faire des sacrifices pour connaître la réalité des faits.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how payer cher appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
– Attends, j’ai besoin de toi pour creuser. Je te paierai très cher.
– Je ne peux pas faire ça, John. – Bien sûr que si, on te paie assez cher.
Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.