Meaning & use
paying respects
Last updated
“paying respects” is a form of “pay your respects”. See that entry for the full set of meanings.
Meanings
phraseidiomformal
Showing honor and sadness for someone who has died, by visiting their grave, attending the funeral or speaking to the family.
Grammar: Always plural respects: they were paying their respects.
Patterns
- pay your respects to someone
- pay your last respects
Hundreds of people lined the street, paying respects as the coffin passed.
We drove to the cemetery on Sunday, paying respects to my grandfather.
Neighbors came by all week, paying respects to the family.
phraseidiomformal
Making a polite, short visit or greeting to someone important, out of courtesy.
Grammar: Less common than the funeral sense; often used in a formal or humorous way.
Patterns
- pay your respects to someone
The new ambassador was paying respects to the mayor on his first day.
I stopped by the head office, paying respects to the old director.
Visitors are expected to pay respects to the village elder.
Common combinations
- pay your last respects
- Mourners came to pay their last respects to the singer.
- pay respects to the family
- He went to the house to pay respects to the family.
- pay respects at the grave
- She paid respects at the grave each spring.
- come to pay respects
- Many colleagues came to pay respects at the service.
Synonyms and how they differ
- mourning
- Mourning describes the grief itself, while paying respects is a specific act of visiting or attending.
- honoring
- Honoring can apply to any admired person, living or dead, while paying respects is closely linked to death.
- offering condolences
- Offering condolences means expressing sympathy to the bereaved, while paying respects can be to the dead person.
Opposites
Word family
- respect noun
- admiration or regard for someone
- respectful adjective
- showing proper regard
- respectfully adverb
- in a polite and honoring way
- disrespect noun
- lack of regard
Commonly confused: paying respects or paying attention?
paying respects vs paying attention
Paying attention means focusing on something, which has nothing to do with honoring someone.
Practice
Where might someone be paying respects?
Choose one answer.
Paying respects is linked to honoring someone who has died, such as at a funeral. The other places do not suggest it.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “paying respects”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.