pay one's dues
Word Rarity
Rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 3.34 in modern English
17
Scrabble Score
11
Letters
2
Syllables
9
Unique Chars
Meaning
verb
To outlay money which is owed as a membership fee or price of admission.
verb
To acquire status or to earn the right to enjoy certain benefits, especially through lengthy experience, hardship, or service to an organization.
Example Sentences
- "The carrier to Casterbridge came up as Edward stepped into the road, and jumped down from the van to pay toll. . . . The carrier paid his dues."
- "Everybody wanna know / Why I'm singing the blues / Yes, I've been around a long time / People, I've paid my dues"
- "[S]he spent some time paying her dues at entry-level jobs."
- "He too championed the anti-apartheid cause, paid his dues, had his works banned."
- "[Josephine Baker] paid her dues in a touring chorus line, and gradually attracted attention for making funny faces, and was rewarded with a respectable third-banana speaking part in the authors' next show, and got some more attention, and so on."