Definition

Noun: 1. An act of retaliation or revenge: The act of harming or causing trouble for someone because they have previously harmed you. 2. ​A financial return on an investment: The profit received from an investment, especially considered in relation to the original amount spent.

Usage

The word "payback" is used to describe either a retaliatory action or the return on a financial investment. It often implies a sense of something being deserved or earned, whether negative (revenge) or positive (profit).

Examples

• As an act of retaliation:
  • The gang leader promised violent payback for the insult.
  • She saw her promotion as payback for all the years of hard work her colleague had ignored.
• As a financial return:
  • The payback period for the solar panels is estimated to be seven years.
  • Investors are looking for a quick payback on their capital.

Advanced Usage

• "Payback time": A period when someone who has done wrong is made to suffer the consequences, or when an investment finally yields a return.
  • After years of corruption, it's payback time for the officials.
  • With the new contract signed, it's payback time for all our early research costs.

Variants and Related Words

• Pay back (phrasal verb): To return money that was borrowed.
  • I need to pay back the loan by December.
• Payback period (compound noun): In finance, the length of time required for an investment to recover its initial cost.

Synonyms

• Retaliation, revenge, vengeance, retribution (for the first meaning).
• Return, yield, profit, gain (for the second meaning).

Related Phrases (Phrasal Verbs)

• Pay back (as a phrasal verb separate from the noun "payback"): To repay money; or figuratively, to reciprocate a good or bad action.
  • Can you pay me back tomorrow? (repay money)
  • He vowed to pay them back for their treachery. (reciprocate a bad action - synonymous with revenge)

Related Idioms

• "Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned": This proverb relates to the concept of severe payback for a personal wrong, though it does not contain the word itself.
• "Reap what you sow": This idiom implies that one will eventually receive a payback, good or bad, corresponding to one's earlier actions.

Noun

1. the act of taking revenge (harming someone in retaliation for something harmful that they have done) especially in the next life; I will repay, saith the Lord"--Romans 12:19
   • Vengeance is mine
   • For vengeance I would do nothing. This nation is too great to look for mere revenge--James Garfield
   • he swore vengeance on the man who betrayed him
   • the swiftness of divine retribution
2. financial return or reward (especially returns equal to the initial investment)