fork out

fork out (third-person singular simple present forks out, present participle forking out, simple past and past participle forked out)

1. (ambitransitive, British, informal) To pay out, to hand over.

   Synonyms: cough up, fork over, shell out

   The hard drive broke down, so I forked out five hundred dollars for a new one.

   • 1922 February, James Joyce, “[Episode 1]”, in Ulysses, Paris: Shakespeare and Company, […], →OCLC:

     We must go to Athens. Will you come if I can get the aunt to fork out twenty quid?

   • 1934, Ernest Bramah, The Bravo of London:

     "Come, George, fork out. I'm sorry if you're rocky too but it's an absolute that it's no good going back without it."

   • 2022 January 4, Marina Hyde, “Hiding behind the loophole of a dead sex trafficker? Stay classy, Andrew”, in The Guardian‎^[1]:

     But in the event that Giuffre’s case against Andrew proceeds and he loses it, and a multimillion-dollar payment has to be made, you get the feeling public attitudes would change overnight if the maternal bailout ran to forking out Andy’s damages for him.