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Pay off   /peɪ ɔf/   Listen
Pay off

verb
1.
Yield a profit or result.
2.
Eliminate by paying off (debts).  Synonym: liquidate.
3.
Pay off (loans or promissory notes).  Synonym: redeem.
4.
Do or give something to somebody in return.  Synonyms: compensate, make up, pay.
5.
Pay someone with influence in order to receive a favor.  Synonym: buy off.
6.
Take vengeance on or get even.  Synonyms: fix, get, pay back.  "That'll fix him good!" , "This time I got him"






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Pay off" Quotes from Famous Books



... None; nor could I ever guess at the generous donor. I need not tell thee what my heart suffered, when death deprived me of her. Thus circumstanced, this good man, Sir Abel Handy, proposed to unite our families by marriage; and in consideration of what he termed the honour of our alliance, agreed to pay off every incumbrance on my estates, and settle them as a portion on you and his son. Yet still another wonder remains.—When I arrive, I find no claim whatever has been made, either by Morrington or his agents. What am I to think? Can Morrington ...
— Speed the Plough - A Comedy, In Five Acts; As Performed At The Theatre Royal, Covent Garden • Thomas Morton

... future!" Ihjel said. "You owe something to the suffering ancestors who got you where you are today. If Scientific Humanism means anything more than just words to you, you must possess a sense of responsibility. Don't you want to try and pay off a bit of this debt by helping others who are just as backward and disease-ridden today as great-grandfather ...
— Planet of the Damned • Harry Harrison

... everything French is superlative and that nothing not French is worthy of attention. Although he appears rather frequently, he plays no real part in the story, and, unless there was some personal grudge to pay off (which is not unlikely), it is difficult to imagine why Madame de Stael should have introduced a character which certainly does her skill as a ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 2 - To the Close of the 19th Century • George Saintsbury

... thought the decree necessary, not at all for the purpose of exterminating the Protestants, —for they held that it would tend to multiply them,—but because it would offer a means of enriching themselves by the confiscations ensuing upon condemnation, and because the king would thus be able to pay off forty-two millions of livres which he owed, and have money in hand, and, besides that, satisfy those who were demanding recompense for the services they had rendered the crown, wherein many placed their hopes." [Memoires de Michael de Castelnau, ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume IV. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot

... engage at New-York; but to this it was objected, that he was bound by his contract with the manager of the former, to play for a certain time under a penalty of two thousand dollars; this objection, however, was soon superseded by a subscription raised among the gentlemen of New-York to pay off that sum if the manager should be able to enforce it. Thus honourably was Mr. Cooper planted in the city which he contrived to make his head-quarters till the beginning of the year 1803, when he passed over to England. During that period he paid a professional visit to ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Volume I, Number 1 • Stephen Cullen Carpenter

... sold. Better let her grandfather suffer than consent to what would be a sin. Then the remembrance of Mrs Lambert's words the day before made her cheeks burn, and she rose up at last determined to let Betty know that immediate steps must be taken and the large sum raised to pay off the debt. ...
— Bristol Bells - A Story of the Eighteenth Century • Emma Marshall

... been allowed to sail so leisurely into Carlisle Bay under her false colours was a Spanish privateer, coming to pay off some of the heavy debt piled up by the predaceous Brethren of the Coast, and the recent defeat by the Pride of Devon of two treasure galleons bound for Cadiz. It happened that the galleon which escaped in a more or less crippled condition ...
— Captain Blood • Rafael Sabatini

... currency question, said, and we believe truly, that most of the inflationists in that body knew very well what the evils of paper-money were, so that argument on that point was wasted on them. But they knew also that large issues of irredeemable paper would make it easier for debtors to pay off their creditors, and came to the conclusion that as the number of debtors in the country was greater than the number of creditors, it was wise policy for a politician to curry favor with the former by helping them to cheat the persons who had ...
— Reflections and Comments 1865-1895 • Edwin Lawrence Godkin

... Marion spoke to David. "Do be sensible, sir," she said, "or the mistress will fret herself to death. Make some money to pay off your debts, and then you can try to ...
— Lost Illusions • Honore De Balzac

... married, an' then the fat ketched fire. Finally he allowed that if he had some money he'd go West 'n take up some land, 'n git along like pussly 'n a flower gard'n. He ambitioned that if his mother 'd raise a thousan' dollars on her place he'd be sure to take care of the int'rist, an' prob'ly pay off the princ'ple in almost no time. Wa'al, she done it, an' off he went. She didn't come to me fer the money, because—I dunno—at any rate she didn't, but got ...
— David Harum - A Story of American Life • Edward Noyes Westcott

... because anything short of perfection grated on his artistic sensibilities. And when an intrusive influenza germ put a sudden end to his entirely egotistical activities, his son and daughter found themselves left with only a few hundred pounds between them. Lovell Court was perforce sold at once to pay off the mortgages, and to meet the many other big outstanding debts the contents of the house had to be dispersed without reserve. The collection of old porcelain to which Archibald Lovell had sacrificed most of the human interests of life ...
— The Vision of Desire • Margaret Pedler

... crowded into such a book. Yes, I give in. But one thing is to be relied on, each of the Presidents struggling to rule over this country next, has brains enough to write his own life. Grant has written his out with a sword, and Greeley can handle his own pen. He won't have any debts of that kind to pay off, and I'm awfully mistaken if the authors of this country won't stand almost as high with him as corporals in the army do now. In his time bayonets will be stacked, and pens have their day. During the next four years I shouldn't wonder if Mr. Shakspeare might have ...
— Phemie Frost's Experiences • Ann S. Stephens

... himself for having quarrelled with his dear uncle. He had a sad tale of how the business that he had started had failed and left him with debts. If he had only a few hundred dollars, he could go on with it and pay off everything. He said I had inherited all that would have been his if he had done right, and he recognized the justice of it, but begged that I would lend him a small sum until he could get on his feet, when he would ...
— The Mystery of Mary • Grace Livingston Hill

... executed Squire Woodbridge's sentences at the reerected whipping-post and stocks. Sedgwick's return to Boston to his seat in the Legislature early in February, had left Woodbridge to resume unimpeded his ancient autocracy in the village, and with as many grudges as that gentleman had to pay off, it may well be supposed the constable had no sinecure. The victims of justice were almost exclusively those who had been concerned in the late rebellion. For although the various amnesties, as well as the express stipulations under which a large number had surrendered, ...
— The Duke of Stockbridge • Edward Bellamy

... the "friendly advice," which was really a threat, not to take that peninsula. Japan, single-handed, could not fight the three powers, and gave way; but every Japanese, high or low, young or old, was determined to pay off Russia. They bought or built war vessels everywhere and increased their army. Russia did not like this, and proposed that Japan should take all the islands in the Pacific, the Philippines, Hawaii, Borneo, etc., and leave the continent of Asia to Russia. Japan ...
— The Story of Russia • R. Van Bergen

... though one of them was a captain, for methought, thinks I to myself, if there be no devil how can wicked people be sent to him? and I have read all that upon a book.' 'Some of your officers,' quoth the landlord, 'will find there is a devil to their shame, I believe. I don't question but he'll pay off some old scores upon my account. Here was one quartered upon me half-a-year, who had the conscience to take up one of my best beds, though he hardly spent a shilling a day in the house, and his man went to roast cabbages at the kitchen fire, ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange

... thought, on the day following her interview with Margaret Moffatt, was to get to John Boswell, and, as she laughingly put it, pay off her debts! ...
— The Place Beyond the Winds • Harriet T. Comstock

... doctrine that all endowments are national property, which the government may and ought to control; but not, as I should once have done, condemning endowments in themselves, and proposing that they should be taken to pay off the national debt. On the contrary, I urged strenuously the importance of a provision for education, not dependent on the mere demand of the market, that is, on the knowledge and discernment of average parents, but calculated to establish and keep up a higher ...
— Autobiography • John Stuart Mill

... calculated. He knew his man. And just now as he awaited the explosion he looked for, his thoughts went back to a scene he had once had with a half drunken machine-minder whom he had had to pay off. The man had epitomised the chief engineer's qualities and character, as those who encountered his authority understood them, in a few lurid, illuminating phrases. "You know," he had said, "that guy ain't a man. No, sir. He's the mush-fed ...
— The Man in the Twilight • Ridgwell Cullum

... the one and only way to settle all the problems centering round the foreman. Thus he would pay off a whole shoal of debts, and rid Diane of Jake forever. And he felt positively injured ...
— The Night Riders - A Romance of Early Montana • Ridgwell Cullum

... large share," was the answer. "Almost a year's allowance, and I'm going to pay off our most pressing debts with the rest. But I am glad to give it to you, Harry, and we must try to be better friends, and keep on the safe ...
— Thurston of Orchard Valley • Harold Bindloss

... St. Audrey's Inn. A firm of sharpers I call them. The money has certainly been owing a long time, but I offered to pay off the sum by degrees. They refused, and insist upon immediate payment. If they would only wait until the war is over, my South African shares would go up and there would be a chance of settling the matter. But they will not wait. I expect a ...
— A Coin of Edward VII - A Detective Story • Fergus Hume

... him share our repast," the knight said, "if it seems good to you. In these woods there is no rank, and I myself have long dropped my knightly title, and shall not reassume it until I can pay off my score to the Baron of Rotherheim, and take my place again ...
— Winning His Spurs - A Tale of the Crusades • George Alfred Henty

... barrister in a dingy Inn of Law, peeping now and then into third-rate London society, and scribbling for the daily press! Would Brown have been a happier man had he been forced into those holy orders for which he never felt the least vocation, to pay off his college debts out of his curate's income, and settle down on his lees, at last, in the family living of Nomansland-cum-Clayhole, and support a wife and five children on five hundred a-year, exclusive of rates and taxes? Let ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume I • Charles Kingsley

... dispositions against us, than you can conceive. If you think as I do, pray try to procure an order for paying off their capital. Mr. Adams adds, that if any certain tax is provided for the payment of interest, Congress may borrow enough in Holland to pay off their whole debts in France, both public and private, to the crown, to the Farmers, and to Beaumarchais. Surely it will be better to transfer these debts to Holland. So critical is the state of that country, that I imagine the moneyed men of it would be glad to place their money in ...
— The Writings of Thomas Jefferson - Library Edition - Vol. 6 (of 20) • Thomas Jefferson

... but you must be more dramatic about it than that. "George," you must say, with tears in your eyes, "I cannot pay off the whole of the mortgage for you. I have only two and ninepence; but at least let me take your niece off your hands." Then George will thump you on the back and say gruffly, "You're a good fellow, Brian, a damn good fellow," and he'll blow his ...
— Second Plays • A. A. Milne

... such deep obligations to such patient and generous friends; but the sharpest pang I suffer—by far the sharpest—is from the debt I owe to this noble young man here; and I have come to this place this morning especially to make the announcement that I have at last found a method whereby I can pay off all my debts! And most especially I wanted HIM to be here when I announced it. Yes, my faithful friend,—my benefactor, I've found the method! I've found the method to pay off all my debts, and you'll get your money!' Hope dawned in Yates's eye; then ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... to assure himself there was no cunning effort of a mad woman to pay off the score her evil tongue of the day before revealed she had been reckoning; but he saw only here dementia gone to a great degree, a friend anxious for our welfare—so anxious, indeed, that the food Master Gordon was pressing upon her made ...
— John Splendid - The Tale of a Poor Gentleman, and the Little Wars of Lorn • Neil Munro

... recommended the Connexion to pay off all the chapel debts, and prepare itself for more vigorous and extensive aggressions ...
— Modern Skepticism: A Journey Through the Land of Doubt and Back Again - A Life Story • Joseph Barker

... stay and occupy an enemy's country, whilst you endeavour, by aid of a still larger army, to open a new campaign and turn them out; and your new troops will also need provisions. Or again, which will be the greater drain on your purse? to pay off your present debt, or, with that still owing, to bid for more troops, and of a ...
— Anabasis • Xenophon

... rascally dealing with Mistress Lucy—and to settle at the same time some little private scores of my own. But he was in truth so pitiful a creature, and looked so scared, that I let him alone; besides I felt that I might one day have a greater account to pay off, to which settlement Dick Cludde must ...
— Humphrey Bold - A Story of the Times of Benbow • Herbert Strang

... won't hold together many minutes longer, so there's no time to lose. We will go back as we came. Give me a hatchet. Now, lads, two of you stand at the chain-cables; knock out the shackles the moment I cut the hawser. Watkins, you take the helm and let her head pay off till the jib fills. Jack, you lend a hand to the other two, and get up the try-sail again as soon ...
— Tales of Daring and Danger • George Alfred Henty

... lances rout the mists Of morning; and—By George! Here's Longstreet, struggling in the lists, Hemmed in an ugly gorge. Pope and his Dutchmen!—whipped before. "Bay'nets and grape!" hear Stonewall roar. Charge, Stuart! Pay off Ashby's score, ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 8 • Various

... much now," said Poppy, in a low voice; "but as you know I'm going to a situation on Monday, I shall soon be able to pay off my debt to you: though, of course, I can't repay you for your kindness in letting me live here when I had nowhere else ...
— A Master Of Craft • W. W. Jacobs

... the united exertions of the churches, will liquidate the other ten shillings in the pound. For instance: Suppose the churches in one county to be thirty, an annual contribution of three pounds from each will produce L90; this, added to the interest of the chapel so cleared, will make L120, to pay off the debt of another chapel, which shall also contribute to its interests, and small annual contribution; and so on, till all the churches are out of debt. This plan is similar to lending money without interest, ...
— The Baptist Magazine, Vol. 27, January, 1835 • Various

... her voice had acquired the toneless sweetness of her mother's. "I've tried to be as saving as I could, but the children have been sick so much that it seems sometimes as if we should never get out of debt. I am trying now to pay off the bills I was obliged to make while Harry was ill in October. If I could only get perfectly strong, we might let Marthy go, now that Jenny is ...
— Virginia • Ellen Glasgow

... I turned away to pay off my taxi, the driver of which was very cantankerous and abusive over his fare. As I came back to Professor Summerlee, he was having a furious altercation with the men who had carried down the oxygen, his little white goat's beard jerking with indignation. One of the fellows ...
— The Poison Belt • Arthur Conan Doyle

... of the narration did he glance up, and that was but momentarily, when Mordaunt said, "It transpires that this Rodolphe had an old score to pay off. You were enemies?" ...
— The Rocks of Valpre • Ethel May Dell

... hand until the matter is settled. I remember how interested you were in the fact that oil was found on my mother's land and that she expected to realize an independent income from the sale of the land, also pay off the mortgage on Chatsworth, our beloved home. Don't be too uneasy, the oil is there all right enough and we shall finally get the money, but the arrangement was: so much down and the rest when the wells ...
— Molly Brown's Orchard Home • Nell Speed

... called the real American. Do you know what I'm going to do? I'm going to make the railroads of this State—oh, it sounds like schoolboy talk, but just give me a little time—I'm going to make the railroads of this State pay off every cent of that mortgage on your farm! Father," he finished, impetuously, in a last appeal, "you're broken up now, disappointed, but would you honestly want me to travel the ...
— Lifted Masks - Stories • Susan Glaspell

... shop, with two rooms above, and I'm going to stop with him for a few months as soon as I get my leave. When the cruiser reaches England we pay off, and I expect to have nothing to do for six months, so Jack and I will ...
— A Rock in the Baltic • Robert Barr

... "I 'd work my fingers to the bone if I had a chance to get back there. I 'm strong 'nuff to take care of a place. If I only had just a tiny strip of land—just 'nuff fer a garden. I could get some chickens an' pay off little by little. I 'm good for ten years yet an' by thet time Bobby would be old 'nough to take hold. If I only had a ...
— The Seventh Noon • Frederick Orin Bartlett

... powers and opportunities of a constitutional minister are too restricted to satisfy his appetite for rule; and thirdly—" he paused a moment, as though doubtful how his words would be received—"I suspect Trescorre of having a private score against your Highness, which he would be glad to pay off publicly." ...
— The Valley of Decision • Edith Wharton

... Memphis, and don't you forget it. We had handbills on all the wagons in the parade, telling the people that the proceeds of the afternoon and evening performance would be given to deserving persons, in charity, and the intention was to use the money to pay off the hands. My, but how the people turned out. The tents were all full, and we had more money than we have had in a month before, and after the performance at night the mayor and some prominent citizens waited on the management and asked when and where ...
— Peck's Bad Boy at the Circus • George W. Peck

... every cleric felt he had a right to follow the example he had seen at Rome, and that he might make profits out of his spiritual ministries and sacraments, having bought the right to do so at Rome, and having no other way to pay off his debt. The transference of power from Italians to Frenchmen, through the removal of the Curia to Avignon, produced no change—only the Italians felt that the enrichment of Italian families had slipped out of their grasp. They had learned to consider ...
— History of the Conflict Between Religion and Science • John William Draper

... men, women, and children from sub-Saharan Africa and Asia trafficked for forced labor and sexual exploitation; many victims willingly migrate to Algeria en route to European countries with the help of smugglers, where they are often forced into prostitution, labor, and begging to pay off their smuggling debt; armed militants reportedly traffic women for sexual exploitation and involuntary servitude, and children may be trafficked for forced labor as domestic servants or street vendors tier rating: Tier ...
— The 2007 CIA World Factbook • United States

... lulling securities—obstacles, like mountains, lying in our way of life as we walked towards the temple of Apollo or Plutus, we smile at the idea of surmounting, so molehillish do they look, and we kick them aside like an old footstool. Let the country ask us for a scheme to pay off the national debt—there she has it; do you request us to have the kindness to leap over the moon—here we go; excellent Mr Blackwood has but to say the word, and a ready-made Leading Article is in his hand, promotive of the sale of countless numbers of "my Magazine," and of the happiness ...
— Recreations of Christopher North, Volume 2 • John Wilson

... whereas he had not found opportunity to deliver more than half of it! Awakened from reverie by violent tugging at coat-tails. This was PRINCE ARTHUR, signalling him to sit down, with perhaps unnecessary vigour. But PRINCE ARTHUR had a long score (fully an hour long) to pay off. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 104, April 22, 1893 • Various

... were preserved in the article as printed finally were these: "The President evidently intends to pay off the 5-20s as rapidly as he may in gold"; "So far as current movements of the Treasury are concerned, until crops are moved it is not likely Treasury gold will be sold for currency to be ...
— Reminiscences of Sixty Years in Public Affairs, Vol. 2 • George S. Boutwell

... out that Shakespeare, in the years from 1600 to 1612, was earning about six hundred a year in the money of the period, or nearly five thousand a year of our money, and yet he was unable or unwilling to pay off a ...
— The Man Shakespeare • Frank Harris

... tons of the best, scattered around on the different dumps, and a whole scad more that will ship. I knew you wouldn't lend on anything but gold-ore and I need money to pay off my Mexicans. I've got to save some ore bags to sack that picked rock in, and hire freighters to haul it in. Then there's the freight and the milling and with one thing and another I ...
— Rimrock Jones • Dane Coolidge

... pay off the great debt which the War of 1812 had brought on us. He did this in a ver-y short time; and now our trade grew so great that rail-roads were built; and so our first rail-road was made ...
— Lives of the Presidents Told in Words of One Syllable • Jean S. Remy

... This does not show, I think, what Dessau (C.I.L., XIV, p. 288) says it does: "quanta fuerit potestas imperatoris Romani in magistratus sociorum," but shows rather that the Roman dictator took advantage of his power to pay off some of the ancient grudge against the Latins, especially Praeneste. The story of M. Marius at Teanum Sidicinum, and the provisions made at Cales and Ferentinum on that account, as told in Gellius X, ...
— A Study Of The Topography And Municipal History Of Praeneste • Ralph Van Deman Magoffin

... was so sick and so discouraged that I thought I should die; but when I had paid for my first Mass, from that moment, as all may see, my health began to return, and with it my courage. To-day, as you see, I am perfectly well. Moreover, I have found means to pay off one hundred and fifty dollars of debt, and to have fifty dollars' worth of repairs made to my little house. How has all that been done? I know not: for you will admit that, by a poor shoemaker such as I, who works at his bench and without even an apprentice, ...
— Purgatory • Mary Anne Madden Sadlier

... enough what befell her to dare to say what he had said to her. It had been—she admitted it—a lesson in scrupulousness, in high delicacy of feeling, in magnanimity. "You are trifling with what may be the life of another—just to amuse yourself—or to pay off a moment's offence. Only the stupid or cruel souls do such things—or think lightly of them. But ...
— Lady Connie • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... electric power, canals, harbors, roads and telegraph; continued governmental control of shipping, woolen, leather, clothing, boots and shoes, milling, baking, butchering, and other industries; a system of taxation on incomes to pay off the national debt, without affecting the ...
— The Psychology of Nations - A Contribution to the Philosophy of History • G.E. Partridge

... cut off and slain all the Pancalas today, I shall then, in joy, afflict the sons of Pandu in battle. Taking their lives one after another and causing the earth to be strewn with the bodies of all the Pancalas, I shall pay off the debt I owe to my sire. I shall today make the Pancalas follow in the wake, hard to tread, of Duryodhana and Karna and Bhishma, and the ruler of the Sindhus. Putting forth my might, I shall tonight ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown

... been presented at Court, she had had three children, the Dowager Lady Anstruthers had died. Once she had written to her father to ask for a large sum of money, which he had sent to her, because she seemed to want it very much. She required it to pay off certain debts on the estate and spoke touchingly of her ...
— The Shuttle • Frances Hodgson Burnett

... office of lord high admiral, and in 1714 became treasurer of the navy, being sworn in two years later as a member of the privy council. In March 1718 he became chancellor of the exchequer. The proposal of the South Sea Company to pay off the national debt was strenuously supported by Aislabie, and finally accepted in an amended form by the House of Commons. After the collapse of that company a secret committee of inquiry was appointed by the ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia

... money to the gambling- tent, and made me promise that you should have half of what we won, but that I should play for both. What, are you beginning to remember now—is it coming back to you after a whole month? I am going to quicken your memory up presently, I can tell you; I have got a good deal to pay off, I'm thinking. I know what you are at; you want to play cuckoo, to turn 'Cousin Philip' out that 'Cousin George' may fill the nest. You know the old man's soft points, and you keep working him up against me. You think that you would like ...
— Dawn • H. Rider Haggard

... all about it for the next six. To his mind the document with the seals, beside one of which he had traced a painful signature, was a forbidding thing, typical of the authority of pale faces over brown. Then, quite suddenly, he remembered that next year he would have to pay off the whole thousand, and, moreover, pay it ...
— The Rapids • Alan Sullivan

... born, it says, with a heritage, a character imposed, and a long task assigned, all due to the ignorance which in our past lives has led us into all sorts of commitments. These obligations we must pay off, relieving the pure spirit within us from its accumulated burdens, from debts and assets both equally oppressive. We cannot disentangle ourselves by mere frivolity, nor by suicide: frivolity would only involve us more deeply ...
— Some Turns of Thought in Modern Philosophy - Five Essays • George Santayana

... told them the supplies were not equal to the necessary expense; represented the danger to which the nation would be exposed unless the war should be prosecuted with vigour; conjured them to clear his revenue, which was mortgaged for the payment of former debts, and enable him to pay off the arrears of the army; assured them that the success of the confederacy abroad would depend upon the vigour and dispatch of their proceedings; expressed his resentment against those who had been guilty of misconduct in the management of the fleet; recommended unanimity ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett

... a lung, hawss," said he. "Might need it again. You winnin' by a mile. A-a-a mile. Sol'mun was right, but maybe he wouldn't have been if I hadn't done some risin' up myse'f this mawnin'! Whoa, hawss! This where they pay off! We ...
— Old Man Curry - Race Track Stories • Charles E. (Charles Emmett) Van Loan

... he assured her. "I am one of those fortunate persons who have outlived happiness and unhappiness. I have nothing to do but live—and pay off a few little debts." ...
— The Malefactor • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... want of a betther— To tell you what luck in this world I have had Since I left the sweet cabin, at Mullinafad. Och, Judy, that night!—when the pig which we meant To dry-nurse in the parlor, to pay off the rent, Julianna, the craythur—that name was the death of her—[1] Gave us the shlip and we saw the last breath of her! And there were the childher, six innocent sowls, For their nate little play-fellow turning up howls; While yourself, my ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al

... the line at Westmore, and now he wants Truscomb—yes, and Halford Gaines, too!—to do the same. That's the secret of his servant-of-the-people pose—gad, I believe it's the whole secret of his marriage! He's devouring my daughter's substance to pay off an old score against the mills. He'll never rest till he has Truscomb out, and some creature of his own in command—and then, vogue la galere! If it were women, now," Mr. Langhope summed up impatiently, "one could understand ...
— The Fruit of the Tree • Edith Wharton

... some solemnity]. There have been millions made in scraping boilers. They say, father, he went into business so as to be able to pay off the L300. ...
— What Every Woman Knows • James M. Barrie

... looked hard at the man. "You force me to take a line I'm not cut out for. Think a moment! You have land and stock worth a good deal of money which my partner believes can be saved from the rogue who's stealing it from you. You are a young man, and if you pull yourself together and pay off his claims, you can sell out and look for another opening wherever you like, but you know what will happen if you go on as you are doing a year or two longer. Have you no friends and relatives in England you owe ...
— Blake's Burden • Harold Bindloss

... city. These distinguished officers had been all summer in secret correspondence with Don John, for they were the instruments with which he meant by a bold stroke to recover his almost lost authority. While he had seemed to be seconding the efforts of the states-general to pay off and disband these mercenaries, nothing had in reality been farther from his thoughts; and the time had now come when his secret plans were to be executed, according to the agreement between himself ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... products to her American customers and bought heavily of American foodstuffs, cotton, and munitions. The result was that Great Britain owed a great deal more to the United States than the latter owed her. The unparalleled situation enabled the United States to pay off her old standing indebtedness to Europe and became a creditor nation. American firms were exporting to the allied powers, whose almoner Great Britain was, commodities of a value of $100,000,000 a month in excess of the amount ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume V (of 8) • Francis J. (Francis Joseph) Reynolds, Allen L. (Allen Leon)

... payable half yearly in British currency on the 8th February and 8th August in each year. Provided always that the Transvaal State shall pay in reduction of the said debt the sum of L100,000 within twelve months of the 8th August 1881, and shall be at liberty at the close of any half year to pay off the whole or any portion of the ...
— South Africa and the Transvaal War, Vol. 1 (of 6) - From the Foundation of Cape Colony to the Boer Ultimatum - of 9th Oct. 1899 • Louis Creswicke

... high interest, was wisely invested in the purchase of improved lands. Vinet also undertook and carried out the ejectment of certain peasants to whom the elder Rogron had lent money on their farms, and who had strained every nerve to pay off the debt, but in vain. The cost of the Rogrons' fine house was thus in a measure recouped. Their landed property, lying around Provins and chosen by their father with the sagacious eye of an innkeeper, was divided ...
— Pierrette • Honore de Balzac

... that people will come to the church rather than go elsewhere in their leisure hours and thus be surrounded by influences of the best character and by an atmosphere that is elevating and refining. They have also undertaken to pay off the ...
— Russell H. Conwell • Agnes Rush Burr

... the Secretary of the Treasury will probably enable to pay off in the course of the present year the residue of the exchanged 4.5% stock, redeemable on January 1st, 1834. It has therefore been included in the estimated expenditures of this year, and forms a part of the sum above stated to have been paid on account of the public debt. The payment of this stock ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Andrew Jackson • Andrew Jackson

... them both: one was her mother, excited by alcohol and anger; the other a tall, pale- faced, but brawny-looking woman, known in the place as "Long 'Liza," a noted brawler, once a neighbour of the Harrods in Moon Street, but now just out of prison and burning to pay off old scores. In vain Fan struggled to reach her mother; the ring of people closed up again; she was flung roughly back and no regard paid to ...
— Fan • Henry Harford

... proposed to be established in Ireland, under the notion of a national bank, by the voluntary subscription of three hundred thousand pounds, to pay off the national debt, the interest of which sum to be paid the subscribers, subject to certain terms of redemption, be not in reality a private bank, as those of England and Scotland, which are national only in name, being in the ...
— The Querist • George Berkeley

... knew the thing was so easy," he said. "What a good fellow you are, Vic! You've made a new man of me. I can pay off those cursed gambling losses, and a couple of the most pressing debts, and have nearly a hundred pounds over. But I wish I had taken that ruby bracelet for Flora—it would have ...
— In Friendship's Guise • Wm. Murray Graydon

... enough to buy the house, he desired to add three rooms and a porch, and so make it large enough for them to live in. A few years were still to run on the mortgage, but times had been so bad that he had been forced to use up not only the little he had saved to pay off the principal, but the annual interest also. Gerhardt was helpless, and the consciousness of his precarious situation—the doctor's bill, the interest due upon the mortgage, together with the sums owed butcher and baker, who, through knowing ...
— Jennie Gerhardt - A Novel • Theodore Dreiser

... bit, a game at which two can play; reproof valiant, retort courteous. recrimination &c. (accusation) 938; revenge &c. 919; compensation &c. 30; reaction &c. (recoil) 277. V. retaliate, retort, turn upon; pay, pay off, pay back; pay in one's own coin, pay in the same coin; cap; reciprocate &c. 148; turn the tables upon, return the compliment; give a quid pro quo &c. n., give as much as one takes, give as good as one gets; give and take, exchange fisticuffs; be quits, be even with; pay off old scores. serve one ...
— Roget's Thesaurus

... think it is impossible. Of all men your father is the last to encumber his estates in a manner unknown to his agent, and to pay off the interest in secret." ...
— Castle Richmond • Anthony Trollope

... Spiesz, and he it was who, in our house one day, said that the widow and orphans were in better care than he had looked for, and could keep their little house over their heads if wealthy neighbors could be moved to open their purses and pay off a debt that was upon it. Then my brother sprang up and declared that the family of an upright and faithful servant of the State, and of a friend of the Schoppers, should have some better and more honorable means of living than beggars' pence. He was not yet of full age, but it was his intent to ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... recover,' the chief groaned. 'And then that debt which I was so delighted to pay off is once again ...
— Oriental Encounters - Palestine and Syria, 1894-6 • Marmaduke Pickthall

... Those who are bountiful to crimes will be rigid to merit and penurious to service. Their penury is even held out as a blind and cover to their prodigality. The economy of injustice is to furnish resources for the fund of corruption. Then they pay off their protection to great crimes and great criminals by being inexorable to the paltry frailties of little men; and these modern flagellants are sure, with a rigid fidelity, to whip their own enormities on the vicarious back ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. III. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... factory was cleansed, but the Shpigulins, for some unknown reason, closed it. One of the Shpigulin brothers always lived in Petersburg and the other went away to Moscow when the order was given for cleansing the factory. The overseer proceeded to pay off the workpeople and, as it appeared, cheated them shamelessly. The hands began to complain among themselves, asking to be paid fairly, and foolishly went to the police, though without much disturbance, for they were not so ...
— The Possessed - or, The Devils • Fyodor Dostoyevsky

... calculation which follows demonstrates, that this fund of two millions and a half of dollars will, in sixteen years, pay off the principal and interest of the twentyfive millions borrowed, and leave a surplus of $673,103 in the hands of the States, which may be supposed equivalent to the charge of managing the money, and paying the loan ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. I • Various

... excited: I will proclaim religious freedom and free instruction. There shall be new resources. I will buy the railroads, pay off the public debt, and starve out the ...
— Sophisms of the Protectionists • Frederic Bastiat

... back the mail by the regular route. I made the round trip in little more than a month. That same paymaster whom I had found away from his post on my first arrival in Charleston intrusted to me a carpet- bag full of gold and silver, to pay off the garrison for the past six months, with as much advance pay as the officers would consent to take, so that he would not have to make the trip down for a long time to come. I had to carry the money-bag and a revolver about with me for twenty-five ...
— Forty-Six Years in the Army • John M. Schofield

... hot out'n Blenham's mouth, is to stick on the job here an' saw wood," he said colorlessly. "I'm takin' my pay off'n him an' I'm doin' ...
— Man to Man • Jackson Gregory

... induced to lend him seven hundred dollars, taking a mortgage on the land and buildings for security. The house was built, and the new furniture appeared to advantage in it. Joel was happy now, and did his best to earn money to pay off the mortgage. He made two more trips to the Georges, with only moderate success. All he could do for the next two years was to pay his interest and ...
— The Coming Wave - The Hidden Treasure of High Rock • Oliver Optic

... period, Mark Twain had resorted to lecturing to pay off debt. He still owed a portion of his share in the Express; also he had been obliged to obtain an advance from the lecture bureau. He dreaded, as always, the tedium of travel, the clatter of hotel life, the monotony ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine

... thousand times, no!' exclaimed Sergius, striking the table so heavily with his open hand that the dice danced and the flagons shook. 'Were you to offer me thrice his value—to pay off my forfeit to Sardesus to the last sestertium—to gain me back my quarry and my vineyards—all that I have lost—I would not give up that slave. My purpose is sweeter to me than all the gold you could offer, and I will not be cheated ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 6, No 5, November 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... first to last!" said Ann Veronica. "Why can't we propagate by sexless spores, as the ferns do? We restrict each other, we badger each other, friendship is poisoned and buried under it!... I MUST pay off that forty ...
— Ann Veronica • H. G. Wells

... he added. "In such a case I should lose everything, and a little more, as Paddy would say. I made a deliberate calculation the other day, and I find, after everything I own has been given up, that there would still be a debt of some thirty thousand dollars to pay off." ...
— Elinor Wyllys - Vol. I • Susan Fenimore Cooper

... this, and which I may as well answer now. One asks me to lift the mortgage from the writer's home. I get a good many of that kind. The writers seem to think I have much money and might want to help them. I should like nothing better. To go around, if one were rich, and pay off mortgages on little homes, so that the owners when they had got the interest together by pinching and scraping should find it all gone and paid up without knowing how, seems to me must be the very finest fun in all the world. But I shall never be ...
— The Making of an American • Jacob A. Riis

... the poor are allowed to finish it. This valuable privilege is secured by tickets; and these tickets are found to be forged to a very large amount—some say indeed to the amount of 14,000 basins. It is not usual to pay off these soup tickets, but a sort of interest can be had upon them by standing just over the railings of the house in Red Lion Square, when the Secretary's dinner is being cooked or served up, and a certain ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, December 4, 1841 • Various

... she added with naive policy, "that I might combine a little business with pleasure this afternoon,—pay off some of those ever urgent calls you accuse me of outlawing, and at the same time try to get up a class of pupils for Miss ...
— Other Things Being Equal • Emma Wolf

... is, Jodrey," pursued the old man, gently, but undeterred, "those honest folks who really do own the country show signs of waking up and wanting to pay off the mortgage the politicians hold on it; and those radicals who think they're going to own the country right soon, now, believe they can turn the trick overnight by killing off the politicians and browbeating the proprietors. It looks to me as if the politicians and the real owners better ...
— All-Wool Morrison • Holman Day

... of birth and fortune. I belonged to an ancient family (a branch of the once powerful border-clan of the Fenwicks) that had for many generations held a fair estate in the neighbourhood of Windermere. As an only son I had succeeded to that estate on attaining my majority, and had sold it to pay off the debts which had been made by my father, who had the costly tastes of an antiquary and collector. The residue on the sale insured me a modest independence apart from the profits of a profession; and as I had not been legally bound to defray my father's debts, ...
— A Strange Story, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... was a farmer who had three sons; his means were small, and he was old and weak, and his sons would take to nothing. A fine large wood belonged to the farm, and one day the father told his sons to go and hew wood, and try to pay off some ...
— Popular Tales from the Norse • Sir George Webbe Dasent

... January 1909, had mollified the Young Turks by an indemnity, and thus put an end to the boycott, Russia in February of the same year liquidated the remains of the old Turkish war indemnity of 1878 still due to itself by skilfully arranging that Bulgaria should pay off its capitalized tribute, owed to its ex-suzerain the Sultan, by very easy instalments to ...
— The Balkans - A History Of Bulgaria—Serbia—Greece—Rumania—Turkey • Nevill Forbes, Arnold J. Toynbee, D. Mitrany, D.G. Hogarth

... novice in the art of vengeance if you think your plan equal to mine. It is for this—and this only—that I have spared him so long. I have suffered him to puff himself up with pride and insolence, till he is ready to burst. But his day of reckoning is at hand, and then he shall pay off the ...
— The Star-Chamber, Volume 2 - An Historical Romance • W. Harrison Ainsworth

... the result. As to James Walsham, whom he had come home prepared to regard as a possible rival, from his early intimacy with the child, and the fact that his mother was her governess, he now regarded him with contempt, mingled with a revengeful determination to pay off the old score, should a chance ...
— With Wolfe in Canada - The Winning of a Continent • G. A. Henty

... done right. He never had a chance to get any schooling and he couldn't figure well. So they used to beat him out of plenty when he would work for them. One day we had picked cotton for a white man and when the time came to pay off, the man paid father, but I noticed that he didn't give him all he should have. I didn't say anything while we was standing there but after we got away I said, 'Papa, he didn't give you the ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - Volume II. Arkansas Narratives. Part I • Work Projects Administration

... promised to stand to me some of these days, and pay off all my transgressions, like a good, kind-hearted, soft-headed old Trojan as he is; and, for this reason, I don't wish to press him now. The mare is sold under peculiar circumstances; otherwise I could have no chance ...
— The Emigrants Of Ahadarra - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton

... wished me to be a Timon after his fashion, but, at the same time, an able jurisconsult, —a necessary profession, as he thought, with which one could, in a regular manner, defend one's self and friends against the rabble of mankind, succor the oppressed, and, above all, pay off a rogue; though the last is ...
— Autobiography • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

... empty-handed. To raise the sum in cash was impossible; but he assigned to Mr. Hodson his little farm and the income of his tithes until the marriage portion should be paid. In the meantime, as his living did not amount to L200 per annum, he had to practice the strictest economy to pay off gradually this heavy tax incurred by his nice ...
— Oliver Goldsmith • Washington Irving

... with the aid of his two friends, was soon established in business alone. His patronage increased rapidly, and he was able to pay off his debts. In a very short time he commanded the chief printing business of the town, and Keimer sold out, and removed to Barbadoes. The Pennsylvania Gazette, which he commenced printing before Meredith left him, won the public favour, and became a source ...
— The Printer Boy. - Or How Benjamin Franklin Made His Mark. An Example for Youth. • William M. Thayer

... never before manifested so quarrelsome a disposition in my presence; most probably because I had never before seen him at variance with an Indian. "Let me hear no more of this, or I shall be obliged to pay off the arrears ...
— Satanstoe • James Fenimore Cooper

... three-mile limit. But as soon as it was known that Australia needed men, that we were at war, then politics and profits could go hang: at heart they were all Australians and would not be behind any in offering their lives. It took but a few days to pay off the crews, send the Jap divers where they belonged, beach the schooners, and take the fastest steamer back HOME—then enlist, and away, with front seats for the biggest ...
— "Over There" with the Australians • R. Hugh Knyvett

... of enthusiasm, and that proves their superiority and is to their credit. I am delighted to have found a mare's nest to-day, an original and sincere poet, and with your permission we will celebrate this happy meeting. The price of the waltzing horse having hardly sufficed to pay off the debt to the publisher of La Guepe, I am not in funds this evening; but I have credit at Pere Lebuffle's, and I invite you all to dinner at his pot-house; after which we will go to my rooms, where I expect a few friends, and ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet

... whom I would distinguish broadly as the economist group and the Labour Party, and if you will examine their advocacy carefully, you will see that they support it by two different sets of contentions, which are not easily reconciled. The economists lay stress upon the fact that you not only pay off at a less onerous cost in real goods, but that it may, considered arithmetically or actuarially, be "good business" for a payer of high income-tax to make an outright payment now and have a lighter income-tax in future. ...
— Essays in Liberalism - Being the Lectures and Papers Which Were Delivered at the - Liberal Summer School at Oxford, 1922 • Various

... productive sources of the national taxation: and, not content with that, they bought up, at 10 per cent. of their nominal value, an enormous amount of discredited bills, issued by the government in the time of the Fronde, which they forced the treasury to pay off at par; and this was done with the very money they had just before advanced ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 12 • Editor-In-Chief Rossiter Johnson

... the Union is neither in a legal nor a moral sense bound for the debts of the States, and it would be a violation of our compact of union to assume them, yet we can not but feel a deep interest in seeing all the States meet their public liabilities and pay off their just debts at the earliest practicable period. That they will do so as soon as it can be done without imposing too heavy burdens on their citizens there is no reason to doubt. The sound moral and honorable ...
— United States Presidents' Inaugural Speeches - From Washington to George W. Bush • Various

... their oath to his Imperial Majesty. To effect this, we have only to stimulate a little the discontent of the troops. They are already tolerably desperate because they have not received their wages. If the Elector does not speedily pay off the troops, the desperation will reach its height, and a ...
— The Youth of the Great Elector • L. Muhlbach

... he could not grow rich, that he could not pay off the mortgage on his place. He seldom sat down to dinner without grumbling at his hard lot. His wife was a sensible woman. She did not wonder that he did not grow rich; only that he contrived to keep out of the poorhouse. She was the mother of eight children, and if he ...
— Haste and Waste • Oliver Optic

... Marines, keep off, if you don't wish your heads broken; and I'll put all this down to your account; and as you say that you'll pay off on my pet, mark my words, if I don't pay off on yours—on your nasty cur there. I'll send him to cruise after Corporal Van Spitter. As sure as I stand here, if you dare to lay a finger on my Jemmy, I'll kill the brute wherever I find him, and make him into saussingers, ...
— Snarleyyow • Captain Frederick Marryat

... lives, was the terrible belief in witchcraft. Having its origin in ignorance and fear, it was chiefly the creation of hearsay carried from lip to lip, beginning with the deliberate invention of lying tongues, delighting in evil for its own sake, or taking advantage of a ready weapon to pay off scores of personal enmity. At any time to a period as near to our own day as the early eighteenth century, nothing was easier than to rid oneself of an enemy by starting a whisper going that he or ...
— Vanishing Roads and Other Essays • Richard Le Gallienne

... the niece of the king, and was to marry the crown-prince of a great empire, which was indebted to the Netherlands for its prominence. The newspapers gave the assurance that this empire would pay off the national debt of the Netherlands if the people would only put enough enthusiasm into ...
— Walter Pieterse - A Story of Holland • Multatuli

... to her raillery. "I haven't got anything to ask you to share," he went on. "I've been working ever since I was eleven—and that's fourteen years—to get what I had. And it's all gone. It'll take several years to pay off my debts, and mother must be supported. No—I've got to give ...
— The Fortune Hunter • David Graham Phillips

... I did urge you to pay off that moiety of your debts left unpaid, with your allowance. Had you done so, all ...
— The International Monthly Magazine, Volume 5, No. 1, January, 1852 • Various

... son John, with whom he had been on bad terms, declared that all the property that came to him was his father's sumptuously compiled history of the Digby family. Apparently John regained some part of the estates later, which perhaps had only been left away from him to pay off debts. A great library of Sir Kenelm's was still in Paris; and after his death it was claimed by the French king, and sold for 10,000 crowns. His kinsman, the second Earl of Bristol, bought it, and joined it to his own; and the catalogue of the combined collection, sold in London in 1683, is an ...
— The Closet of Sir Kenelm Digby Knight Opened • Kenelm Digby

... Illustre is one of the best fellows in the world, and occasionally (when my pockets represent that vacuum which Nature very properly abhors) he advances me a couple of Napoleons. I wipe out the score from time to time by furnishing a design for the paper. Now to-day, you see, I'm in luck. I shall pay off two obligations at once—to say nothing of Monsieur Choucru's six-fold subscription to the P.C., on which the publishers will allow me a douceur of thirty francs. Now, confess that ...
— In the Days of My Youth • Amelia Ann Blandford Edwards

... preacher. He must draw. That's it; he must draw. I expect the first year, that we shall have a deficit to make up, but if next spring we don't let all our pews, why I am mistaken in my man, that's all. Besides they say he is a capital man to get money out of people, and we must pay off our debt or we will never ...
— Laicus - The experiences of a Layman in a Country Parish • Lyman Abbott

... sturdy and prosperous men. The one who succeeded to the patrimony was at first a gentleman, then a shabby-genteel, and at forty his time was taken up with schemes to dodge the debtors' prison, and with plans to pay off the National Debt; for it seems that men who can not manage their own affairs are not deterred thereby from volunteering to look after ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 13 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Lovers • Elbert Hubbard

... satisfaction to me," the Count went on, "to pay off in some small degree the debt of gratitude which I never even acknowledged to Challoner. Eve"—he paused, and repeated the name with a certain sense of enjoyment—"Eve is not fully equipped with worldly wisdom. Thank God, for I hate a worldly-wise woman. She is hardly old enough or—plain ...
— The Grey Lady • Henry Seton Merriman

... these, however, could Ivan get. Doggedly he returned to his duties, and began, bit by bit, to pay off his debts: those debts which, five years ago, would have appeared so absurd; and which were now the nightmare of his existence! But, though he managed to accomplish the usual amount of work, and had ...
— The Genius • Margaret Horton Potter

... sinews of movement, a country in which the working classes laid down their tools, a country whose forges had flickered out and whose railroad tracks were deserted, would simply be the helpless prey of any country who cared to pay off old scores." ...
— A People's Man • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... use the Magic Belt to wish all of us in Kansas. We will put some emeralds in our pockets, and can sell them in Topeka for enough to pay off the mortgage on Uncle Henry's farm. Then we can all live together ...
— The Emerald City of Oz • L. Frank Baum

... reference was made to the finances of the expedition in the Introduction. Here is an extended statement which, more fully amplified with a detailed list of donations, will be again published when additional funds have been raised to pay off the debit balance and ...
— The Home of the Blizzard • Douglas Mawson

... previously we had brought a cargo of native labourers from the Gilbert Islands to be indentured to the cotton planters in Samoa, and finding the country in such a disturbed state, with business paralysed, and no further demand for a fresh cargo of Kanaka "recruits," we decided to pay off most of the ship's company, and let the brigantine lie up till the end of the rainy and bad weather season—from the end of November till March, The skipper and a few of the native crew remained on board, but I took up my quarters on shore, ...
— The Call Of The South - 1908 • Louis Becke

... what the intelligence officer who had written the report had been able to uncover, or what data we could get by telephone or by mailing out a questionnaire. Our instructions for "what to do before the Blue Book man arrives," which had been printed in many service publications, were beginning to pay off and the reports were continually getting ...
— The Report on Unidentified Flying Objects • Edward Ruppelt

... mortgage of two thousand pounds on his very desirable freehold. That was not altogether his own fault, since one of the thousand pounds was his sister's fortune, which he had to pay on her marriage; and a man who has neighbors that will go to law with him is not likely to pay off his mortgages, especially if he enjoys the good opinion of acquaintances who want to borrow a hundred pounds on security too lofty to be represented by parchment. Our friend Mr. Tulliver had a good-natured ...
— The Mill on the Floss • George Eliot

... to France," I insisted; "go to Lise and tell her that I cannot do for her father what I promised. I told her that the first thing I did would be to pay off his debts. You must tell her how it is, and go to Mother Barberin also. Simply say that my people are not rich as I had thought; there is no disgrace in not having money. But don't tell them ...
— Nobody's Boy - Sans Famille • Hector Malot

... he suppressed a rebellion which had menaced Spain with the loss of the wealthiest of her provinces. He had punished the guilty, and in their spoils found the means to recompense the faithful. He had, moreover, so well husbanded the resources of the country, that he was enabled to pay off the large loan he had negotiated with the merchants of the colony, for the expenses of the war, exceeding nine hundred thousand pesos de oro.31 Nay, more, by his economy he had saved a million and a half of ducats for the government, ...
— History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William Hickling Prescott

... the best society had had recourse to him in times of difficulty, either to find money for gambling, or to pay off a debt, or to sell a picture, a family ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant

... their real value; others paid in personal property at a high valuation; and some paid the cash. When the notes were first issued, they were current in the vicinity, and Smith took advantage of their credit to pay off with them the debts he and the brethren had contracted in the neighbourhood for land and other purchases. The eastern creditors, however, refused to take their notes. This led to the expedient of exchanging them for the notes ...
— Travels and Adventures of Monsieur Violet • Captain Marryat

... notwithstanding this, her head continued to sweep round—slowly, it is true; still—"Mainsail haul!" bellowed the first luff through his trumpet, and round swung the after yards, the men bracing them well up and rounding in on the main-sheet. Now her head was beginning to pay off, but slowly. The first lieutenant dashes up on the poop and looks over the side—she has ...
— A Middy of the King - A Romance of the Old British Navy • Harry Collingwood

... wealth of the nations, it was equally surprising for him to learn that the census of 1880 proved the hundred-year-old Republic could purchase Great Britain and Ireland and all their realized capital and investments and then pay off Britain's debt, and yet not exhaust her fortune. But the most startling statement of all was that which I was able to make when the question of Free Trade was touched upon. I pointed out that America was now the greatest manufacturing nation in the world. [At a later ...
— Autobiography of Andrew Carnegie • Andrew Carnegie

... fire, but that was liquid ice. It got into my veins, somehow, instead of blood. I tell you, Ralph, it's no good. I can't stand it any longer; but I will pay off that schoolmaster, first. Let me get at him," and he made an effort ...
— The Young Franc Tireurs - And Their Adventures in the Franco-Prussian War • G. A. Henty

... ignorance Fallen into the days of conformity Few people know how to make a wood-fire Finding the world disagreeable to themselves Have almost succeeded in excluding pure air Just as good as the real Lived himself out of the world Long score of personal flattery to pay off Not half so reasonable as my prejudices Pathos overcomes one's sense of the absurdity of such people Permit the freedom of silence Poetical reputation of the North American Indian Point of breeding never to speak ...
— Widger's Quotations of Charles D. Warner • David Widger

... am unwilling to be in debt to tradesmen, and, thank God! I am free from this burden; but as great people keep me so long waiting for payments, I have got rather into difficulty. This letter, however, will be your security...I will pay off the interest with my notes." There is no real ground for charging Haydn with avarice, as some writers have done. "Even philosophers," as he remarked himself, "occasionally stand in need of money"; and, as Beethoven said to George Thomson, when haggling about prices, there is ...
— Haydn • J. Cuthbert Hadden

... it gives, and how generous a good day's sport makes a man," he mused. "A few such customers as this one is would make us rich, and enable us to pay off the thousand marks due on ...
— The Boy Nihilist - or, Young America in Russia • Allan Arnold

... your sovereignty. Send men to receive our arms, our hostages, our city with its gates thrown open. You shall never have to repent of our fidelity, nor we of your dominion." Thanks were returned to Camillus both by the enemy and by his own countrymen. Money was required of the Faliscians to pay off the soldiers for that year, that the Roman people might be relieved from the tribute. Peace being granted, the army was ...
— The History of Rome, Books 01 to 08 • Titus Livius

... now gradually to pay off the debt I was under for the printing-house. In order to secure my credit and character as a tradesman, I took care not only to be in reality industrious and frugal, but to avoid all appearances to the contrary. I drest plainly; I was seen at no places ...
— Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin • Benjamin Franklin

... I had been sent up to the "Head of Chesuncook" from Bangor, by the lumbering firm of which my uncle was a member, to pay off one of their "gangs," which made the "head" of that lake a sort of depot ...
— Happy Days for Boys and Girls • Various

... the confederation very insignificant. By their conduct in the revolution," he added, "the citizens of America have commanded the respect of the world; but it grieves me to think they will in a measure lose it, unless they strengthen the confederation, give congress power to regulate their trade, pay off their debt, or at least the interest of it, establish a well regulated militia, and, in a word, complete all those measures which you have ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 4 (of 5) • John Marshall

... had been done for Bates. Frere attempted to resist this indignity, but Cheshire, clapping his musket to his ear, swore he would blow out his brains if he uttered another syllable; Frere, catching the malignant eye of John Rex, remembered how easily a twitch of the finger would pay off old scores, and was silent. "Step in here, sir, if you please," said Rex, with polite irony. "I am sorry to be compelled to tie you, but I must consult my own safety as well as your convenience." Frere scowled, and, stepping awkwardly ...
— For the Term of His Natural Life • Marcus Clarke

... shares for the debts THEY had put up, and left him and the boys to help themselves. Ned couldn't bear to face the boys that he'd helped to ruin, and put out, and ain't been heard from since. After Harkins had got rid of Ned and the boys he manages to pay off that wonderful debt, and sells out for a hundred thousand dollars. That money—Ned's money—he sends to Sacramento, for he don't dare to travel with it himself, and is kalkilatin' to leave the kentry, for some of the boys allow to ...
— Snow-Bound at Eagle's • Bret Harte



Words linked to "Pay off" :   offense, bear, settle, grease one's palms, law-breaking, criminal offence, offence, criminal offense, lift, amortize, get even, bribe, pay up, amortise, ante up, yield, crime, get back, corrupt, buy



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