How to Use payoff in a Sentence

payoff

1 of 2 noun
  • You'll have to work hard but there'll be a big payoff in the end.
  • We expected more of a payoff for all our hard work.
  • We made a lot of sacrifices with little payoff.
  • He lost his factory job but received a payoff and a pension.
  • Several city officials have been accused of receiving payoffs from the company.
  • That’s also why the scares and the laughs have so much payoff.
    Vulture, 27 Jan. 2023
  • Ready for this?Summit hike near Phoenix will test you, and the payoff is so worth it.
    Mare Czinar, The Arizona Republic, 11 Feb. 2023
  • But there also is the payoff factor, and that led to new math in the wake of the trade deadline.
    Ira Winderman, Sun Sentinel, 11 Feb. 2023
  • More:Summit hike near Phoenix will test you, and the payoff is so worth it.
    Mare Czinar, The Arizona Republic, 31 Mar. 2023
  • The products are easy to wear and give a good color payoff.
    ELLE, 8 Sep. 2023
  • This shade is a perfect my-lips-but-better colour on me, and the payoff is huge.
    Megan Decker, refinery29.com, 23 Apr. 2023
  • Why Trust Us? Trimming your brows is a quick fix with a big payoff.
    Garrett Munce, Men's Health, 7 July 2023
  • This deal was about rolling the dice for a potential payoff in the future.
    Jarrett Bell, USA TODAY, 29 Aug. 2023
  • The payoff wasn’t the pay, but the freedom to write songs without restrictions.
    Rob Tannenbaum, New York Times, 21 Mar. 2023
  • The slow-jam tease of the buildup makes the payoff worth it — and all of this in what amounts to only one chapter of the roving story.
    K. Austin Collins, Rolling Stone, 7 Feb. 2023
  • Two common debt payoff methods are the snowball method and the avalanche method.
    Becca Stanek, The Week, 26 July 2023
  • She’s been paying those loans off for over a decade (the standard payoff time) and doesn’t see an end in sight.
    Katie Coss, Women's Health, 30 June 2023
  • According to Kaplan, there was a small payoff for that approach and the fate of the film was out of his hands.
    Steven Gaydos, Variety, 12 July 2023
  • Well, the payoff happened just two weeks before the election.
    ABC News, 19 Mar. 2023
  • His payoff was Saturday, kicking for the Buckeyes in the first game of the season.
    Andrew Gillis, cleveland, 7 Sep. 2023
  • For Cole, one of the biggest payoffs is the delight visitors take in the garden.
    Linda McIntosh, San Diego Union-Tribune, 12 July 2023
  • But Jeremiah said the payoff is too plausible and too great for Williams not to go first.
    Tom Krasovic, San Diego Union-Tribune, 27 Feb. 2024
  • The gesture was rooted in kindness, but there was a payoff, too.
    Rory Smith, New York Times, 2 June 2023
  • Still, fans committing to travel and attend F1 races want the payoff to be worth the buildup.
    Safid Deen, USA TODAY, 8 May 2023
  • Both offer an escape from daily life, as well as the hope of a big payoff.
    Mark Feeney, BostonGlobe.com, 29 Aug. 2023
  • Because the visuals, acting, and payoff by the end are all 100% worth it.
    Evan Romano, Men's Health, 4 Aug. 2023
  • In the Daniels payoff, the crankocrat and the candidate were embodied in the same person, Trump.
    Timothy Noah, The New Republic, 3 Apr. 2023
  • The payoff for a tough climb up Storm King is the most magnificent view of Lake Crescent.
    Globe Staff, BostonGlobe.com, 27 July 2023
  • That’s why episode four is important to me, because that’s where the love story payoff comes together, and all of their obstacles are clear.
    Lesley Goldberg, The Hollywood Reporter, 22 Mar. 2024
  • That’s in stark contrast to the existing payoff plan, where the pension payment now amounts to about 19 percent of city revenue — a share that will drop sharply to about 11 percent in future years.
    David Garrick, San Diego Union-Tribune, 8 Mar. 2024
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pay off

2 of 2 verb
  • I finally paid off the loan.
  • At the end of the day, that’s what’s more likely to pay off for you in the long run.
    Amelia Harnish, Quartz, 7 Apr. 2023
  • Montes was able to stay in her apartment and pay off 83% of the past rent.
    Ruben Vives, Los Angeles Times, 7 Jan. 2024
  • Miller has plans to use the money to pay off her car loan.
    Praveena Somasundaram, Washington Post, 12 Apr. 2023
  • My grandma would need to pay off the plots over the course of many years.
    Maggie Levantovskaya, Longreads, 31 Aug. 2023
  • Over the course of a year it was paid off as legal fees, as was the invoice.
    Nbc Universal, NBC News, 26 Mar. 2023
  • Meanwhile, the state’s going to pay off the county’s debt to build the lodge.
    cleveland, 21 Dec. 2022
  • Clearly, all of that training for the Eras tour paid off.
    Hanna Lustig, Glamour, 18 Dec. 2023
  • But none of this has paid off: not with donors, not in poll numbers.
    Adrienne Mahsa Varkiani, The New Republic, 25 July 2023
  • The best thing for me was simply using the 2017 bull run to pay off my house.
    Louis Cheslaw, Jenna Milliner-Waddell, Curbed, 22 Dec. 2022
  • His strategy didn't pay off even though the fight went the full 12 rounds.
    José M. Romero, The Arizona Republic, 3 Dec. 2022
  • The drastic changes paid off, as the women won their first Olympic gold since 2012.
    Sean Gregory / Paris, TIME, 11 Aug. 2024
  • But it’s been in her family, and paid off, for decades.
    Ben Wieder, Miami Herald, 26 Jan. 2024
  • The strategy paid off for Logano, while Blaney finished the race in 11th place.
    Shane Connuck, Charlotte Observer, 3 Mar. 2024
  • The last-ditch effort from the Deep Space Network has now appeared to pay off.
    Justin Klawans, The Week, 5 Aug. 2023
  • But Wang stuck with the integrity of her story and that bet paid off.
    Jireh Deng, Los Angeles Times, 25 Jan. 2024
  • The Club stands firmly in the camp that AI initiatives will pay off over time.
    Paulina Likos, CNBC, 30 July 2024
  • One of the kids will have to surrender their child to the Devil to pay off their father’s debt.
    Zac Ntim, Deadline, 17 Sep. 2024
  • Going against Trump did not pay off for one of the candidates.
    Scott Wartman, The Enquirer, 20 Mar. 2024
  • And the investments are paying off — so far, at least — Huang claims.
    David Goldman, CNN, 4 Sep. 2024
  • The war in Ukraine may have pulled oil prices up, but some of the fund’s stock bets didn’t pay off, and the government is still in crisis.
    Adriane Quinlan, Curbed, 8 Dec. 2022
  • That bet may have paid off, as Toyota boasts strong hybrid sales even as the rest of the EV market slows down.
    Lionel Lim, Fortune Asia, 6 Mar. 2024
  • In this week’s memo, the DNC points out their focus on Virginia did indeed pay off.
    Gary Grumbach, NBC News, 9 Nov. 2023
  • For a project that pays off, choose high-quality paint that will stand up to time and the elements.
    Alicia Chilton, Better Homes & Gardens, 23 Mar. 2023
  • Casting Chalamet has paid off the for the film, which has earned strong nods.
    Zack Sharf, Variety, 6 Dec. 2023
  • Carpenter expects to have paid off more than half her credit card debt by the end of the year.
    Dan Rosenzweig-Ziff, Washington Post, 18 June 2024
  • Honesty will pay off when getting others to pitch in and help.
    Eugenia Last, The Mercury News, 19 June 2024
  • As was so often the case in his life, Walt won the day and proved that creative ambition could pay off in the long run.
    Adam B. Vary, Variety, 11 Oct. 2023
  • Jen hosted a party at a strip club to pay off legal bills.
    Women's Health, 25 Jan. 2023
  • The goal is to pay off their full debt in full by making payments under a lower rate and pay off the debt in five years or so.
    Susan Tompor, USA TODAY, 17 Sep. 2024

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'payoff.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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