pay one's dues

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pay one's dues (third-person singular simple present pays one's dues, present participle paying one's dues, simple past and past participle paid one's dues)

1. To outlay money which is owed as a membership fee or price of admission.
   • 1871, Thomas Hardy, chapter 8, in Desperate Remedies:

     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.

2. (idiomatic) To acquire status or to earn the right to enjoy certain benefits, especially through lengthy experience, hardship, or service to an organization.
   • 1969, B.B. King, D. Clark (lyrics and music), “Why I Sing the Blues”, performed by B.B. King:

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

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

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

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

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

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

     [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.