Skip to main content
Glite Dictionary
in the pay of

in the pay of

8.8
Getting secret money from someone to do what they want
  • idiom
  • Literature
translation icon : al servicio de
  • Are you really in the pay of that company?

Examples

  • Several officials were found to be in the pay of the criminal syndicate.

  • He denied being in the pay of any foreign government.

  • The senator was rumored to be in the pay of powerful business interests.

  • The politician was in the pay of a large corporation.

  • The journalist was in the pay of a political party, raising concerns about his impartiality.

  • Many officials were found to be in the pay of foreign entities, sparking a scandal.

  • The investigation revealed that several advisors were in the pay of the industry they regulated.

Synonyms

paid
vsin the pay of
1 1.0

Getting money for work you do

implies secret support and suggests questionable loyalty rather than neutral payment
remunerated
vsin the pay of
  • Formal
6.1

Getting paid for work or services

implies secret payment and suggests questionable loyalty or outside influence

Antonyms

unpaid
50 1.8

Money that someone still owes and has not paid

How Paid

in the pay of
  • Literature
8.8
paid
1 1.0
unpaid
32 1.7

Surface Forms

in the pay of main

Morphology

in + the + pay + of

The core meaning 'receiving payment from / being paid by someone' is directly derivable from the constituents: 'pay' (remuneration) combined with the locative/possession structure 'in ... of' yields being within someone’s payments. Although the phrase can carry a nuance of secret or questionable loyalty, that pragmatic shading does not block a B1 learner who knows the words from inferring the basic paid-by relationship, and comparable constructions exist in many languages.

Etymology

In the pay of may come from the image of a person quietly given money by someone else to do what that person wants, with the word pay showing the money link. That's why it now means 'receiving regular payment' from someone, often in a way that suggests 'loyalty' or 'secret influence'.