pay one's dues

present singular third person pays one's dues · participle present paying one's dues · participle past paid one's dues · past paid one's dues

1. To outlay money which is owed as a membership fee or price of admission.

   The carrier to Casterbridge came up as Edward stepped into the road, and jumped down from the van to pay toll. . . . The carrier paid his dues.

   1871, Thomas Hardy, chapter 8, in Desperate Remedies

2. idiomaticTo acquire status or to earn the right to enjoy certain benefits, especially through lengthy experience, hardship, or service to an organization.

   [S]he spent some time paying her dues at entry-level jobs.

   2005 August 7, Jeff Leeds, “A Money Scandal That's Rocking Hip-Hop”, in New York Times, retrieved 17 Jul 2013

   3 more examples

   Everybody wanna know / Why I'm singing the blues / Yes, I've been around a long time / People, I've paid my dues

   1969, B.B. King, D. Clark, “Why I Sing the Blues”, performed by B.B. King

   He too championed the anti-apartheid cause, paid his dues, had his works banned.

   2005 November 6, Donald Morrison, “Still Enough Wrongs To Write”, in Time, archived from the original on 30 Jun 2013

   [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.

   2014 May 28, John McWhorter, “Saint Maya”, in The New Republic, →ISSN