Pay for means to give money in exchange for something (a purchase, a service, a course) or to suffer because of a mistake. In the first meaning, after for you name what you are buying: pay for the tickets. In the second, you name the action you had to answer for: He paid for his carelessness.
Want to use pay for in conversation?
Write a sentence — we'll show the mistakes right away and suggest how to say it more naturally.
The check is taking longer than usual. Your feedback will appear here automatically.
pay for + ticket/meal/course; pay + amount + for + something; pay + person/bill/rent (no for); pay for + a mistake
- My company pays for my train tickets when I visit clients.
- Let me pay for the coffee this time; you paid last week.
- I skipped the warm-up and paid for it the next day with sore muscles.
What changed
First versionI've already paid the concert tickets online.
RevisionI've already paid for the concert tickets online.
It is easy to leave out for and write paid the tickets. But pay without for means to pay a person or to make a particular payment: pay the driver, pay the bill. When you name a purchase or a service, you need for: paid for the tickets.
In its second meaning, pay for is about unpleasant consequences: He ignored the doctor's advice and paid for it later. Pay off is the opposite: your efforts bring results: All that practice finally paid off.
Your turn
We ___ the hotel room in advance, so at check-out we only had to return the keys.
Show the answer
paid for — The room is what they paid for, so paid for is needed. Without a preposition, paid is followed by the person or business being paid, or by the bill itself: paid the hotel, paid the bill. Nobody says paid the hotel room.
Write about a big purchase or service: a course, a trip, home repairs. Say what you paid for and how: all at once or in instalments.
I paid for my English course in three monthly instalments because I couldn't afford the full price at once.
Learn to use new words without mistakes
Write phrases with the words you are learning. LetsWords shows mistakes in usage and grammar, suggests corrections and explains them, and review helps the words stick.