foot the bill

English

Verb

foot the bill (third-person singular simple present foots the bill, present participle footing the bill, simple past and past participle footed the bill)

1. (idiomatic) To pay for something.
   • 1966, Thomas Pynchon, chapter 5, in The Crying of Lot 49, New York: Bantam Books, published 1976, →ISBN, page 103:

     The cop tried the door. “It's locked, hey,” he said. “Bust it down,” roared Oedipa, “and Hitler Hilarius here will foot the bill.”

   • 2022 April 20, Philip Haigh, “What caused the cracks in Hitachi's Class 800 trains...”, in RAIL, number 955, page 53:

     When I spoke to Hitachi, it was very open that it will foot the bill, not taxpayers or farepayers.

References

• “foot the bill”, in Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster, 1996–present.
• “foot the bill” in Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English, Longman.
• “foot the bill”, in Cambridge English Dictionary, Cambridge, Cambridgeshire: Cambridge University Press, 1999–present.
• “foot the bill”, in Collins English Dictionary.