paying

1. 1
   verb

   Present participle and gerund of pay.

   He is paying off his student loans a little each month.

   Customers paying with cash receive a small discount at the register.

   Note

   One -ing form does two jobs. After be it builds the progressive (she is paying the bill). When it heads a phrase of its own, it works as a noun, the gerund (paying suppliers promptly matters). Both uses keep every construction of pay, including the intransitive 'be worth it': the gamble is finally paying. Once the form takes a plural or an article, it has become the noun meaning payment.

2. 2
   noununcountable

   The act of giving money in settlement of a debt, cost, or obligation.

   Prompt paying of suppliers kept the small business in good standing with vendors.

   His careful paying of every invoice on time impressed the auditors.

   Similarpayment, settlement

   Oppositenonpayment

   Note

   Built from pay plus -ing, this noun can be counted, which the gerund cannot. Philip H. Wicksteed's The Commonsense of Political Economy (1912) sets a person's payings against his usings of commodities, pairing two -ing plurals so that each outlay reads as a separate act. Payment is the everyday choice. Paying suits writing that keeps the action in view, usually followed by of: the paying of invoices.

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