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ENGLISH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

defray.

To pay or discharge (a debt, expense etc.); to meet (the cost of something).

6 characters2 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

verb/dɪˈfɹeɪ/Canada, General-American, Received-Pronunciation/dɪˈfɹæɪ/Australia
  1. To pay or discharge (a debt, expense etc.); to meet (the cost of something).

    transitive
  2. To pay for (something).

    archaic · transitive
  3. To spend (money).

    obsolete · transitive
Where this word comes from

From Middle French desfrayer, French défrayer, from dé- + Old French fraier (“to spend”).

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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.