Definition
To acquire status or to earn the right to enjoy certain benefits, especially through lengthy experience, hardship, or service to an organization.
In Context
- "Everybody wanna know / Why I'm singing the blues / Yes, I've been around a long time / People, I've paid my dues"
- "[S]he spent some time paying her dues at entry-level jobs."
- "He too championed the anti-apartheid cause, paid his dues, had his works banned."
- "[Josephine Baker] paid her dues in a touring chorus line, and gradually attracted attention for making funny faces, and was rewarded with a respectable third-banana speaking part in the authors' next show, and got some more attention, and so on."