pay as you earn
noun
Simple meaning
The British system of withholding tax.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
payazyoournSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
ˈpeɪˈæzˈjuˈɝn
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
noun
British
The British system of withholding tax
british
The national system whereby income tax and national insurance is deducted by an employer from the salary or wages of an employee.
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: The British system of withholding tax
Used this way, pay as you earn is a word tied to one variety of English that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It turns up most in finance or economics contexts.
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Regional
- Connotation
- Matter-of-fact
- Usage feel
- Uncommon in everyday speech
Where it naturally appears
- Finance/economics
Usage note
Mainly used in British English, so it may read as unusual elsewhere.
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.