tribute

Pluraltributes

Formstributes, tributing, tributed

1. 1
   nouncountable or uncountable

   An act, statement, or gift that expresses gratitude, respect, or admiration toward someone.

   The orchestra performed a moving tribute to its late conductor.

   Colleagues paid tribute to her decades of quiet service to the community.

   Similarhomage, salute, accolade, testimonial, honor

   Note

   The softened descendant of a word for payment: Latin tributum meant "a thing contributed or paid." Respect is still framed as something owed and handed over, which is why the usual verb is pay. You pay tribute to someone. A tribute of can name what is given, as in Thomas Gray's "the passing tribute of a sigh," where the offering is nothing more than a breath.

2. 2
   nouncountable

   A homage made within a creative work that honors another work or its creator.

   The closing scene is a clear tribute to the silent films of the 1920s.

   Critics read the novel's structure as a deliberate tribute to its author's mentor.

   Similarhomage, nod, salute

   Note

   Here the respect is paid inside the work itself, through a borrowed scene, line or shape, rather than in words spoken about it. A common construction puts the honored title before the noun as a modifier: an episode of That '70s Show can carry an Up in Smoke tribute. It grows from the broader sense of acknowledgment, and like it can be counted (a tribute) or used without an article.

3. 3
   nouncountable or uncountable

   A payment made by one nation to another as a sign of submission or dependence.

   Conquered provinces paid annual tribute to Rome in grain and gold.

   The treaty forced the weaker state to deliver tribute to its powerful neighbor.

   Similarlevy, tax

   Note

   The sense nearest the word's Latin root: tribuo, "to assign, allot," itself usually traced to tribus, "tribe." It is wealth handed over as the price of being conquered, and Rome's subject provinces are the classic case. It takes the same verb, pay, as the respectful meaning. It differs from the vassal's payment in that one state owes it to another, not a person to a lord.

4. 4
   noununcountable

   A payment rendered by a feudal vassal to his lord in return for the land he held.

   Every spring the villagers carried their tribute of grain to the manor.

   The baron collected tribute from the vassals who farmed his estates.

   Similardues, rent, levy

5. 5
   noununcountable

   Money extorted under threat; protection money paid to avoid harm.

   The market traders quietly paid tribute to the racketeers each Friday.

   When the owner stopped paying tribute, his warehouse mysteriously caught fire.

   Similarprotection

6. 6
   noununcountable

   A share of the mined ore, or of its value, paid to the miner as wages.

   Under the old contracts, miners earned their tribute as a percentage of the ore extracted.

   A skilled team could make a good living on tribute when the lode ran rich.

   Note

   A mining arrangement, not a gift: miners worked part of a lode for an agreed share of the ore or its value. William Pryce's Mineralogia Cornubiensis (1778) speaks of setting a copper mine "upon tribute." Under it the Tributor bears the whole cost of digging, raising and dressing the ore. Charles Tomlinson's Cyclopaedia of Useful Arts and Manufactures contrasts the tribute system with tut-work.

7. 7
   verbtransitive

   To pay or hand over something as tribute.

   The provinces tribute grain and livestock to the central authority every autumn.

   For generations the clan tributed horses to the khan in exchange for peace.

   Similarpay, render

   Note

   The verb puts the noun to work: the thing handed over is the object, and the receiver follows with to. Its forms are regular: tributes, tributing, tributed. Richard Whitlock's Zootomia (1654) uses it figuratively. It mocks a trifler for "tributing most precious Minutes, to the Scepter of a Fanne," as though his time were a levy owed to a lady's fan.

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