repay

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”).

• IPA^(key): /ɹiˈpeɪ/

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• Rhymes: -eɪ

repay (third-person singular simple present repays, present participle repaying, simple past and past participle repaid)

1. Synonym of pay back in all senses.

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

   • 1962 April, “Talking of Trains: Short-sighted approach to profits?”, in Modern Railways, page 219:

     On the results of the Kent Coast electrification, which is known to be repaying so far a satisfactory return on the investment in it, a Waterloo-Bournemouth scheme shows reasonable financial promise.

2. (transitive) To make worthwhile; to yield a result worth the effort.
   • 2013, M. Pavone-MacAluso, Testicular Cancer and Other Tumors of the Genitourinary Tract, page 517:

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

• repayment

• Payer, Peary, apery, payer, peary, praye, rapey