pay attention

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pay attention (third-person singular simple present pays attention, present participle paying attention, simple past and past participle paid attention)

1. (idiomatic, intransitive) To attend; to be attentive; to focus one's attention.

   Please pay attention to the danger signs.

   • 1913, Joseph C[rosby] Lincoln, chapter IV, in Mr. Pratt’s Patients, New York, N.Y.; London: D[aniel] Appleton and Company, →OCLC:

     I was on my way to the door, but all at once, through the fog in my head, I began to sight one reef that I hadn't paid any attention to afore.

   • 1950 January, David L. Smith, “A Runaway at Beattock”, in Railway Magazine, page 54:

     Just south of Wamphray station they overtook the runaway. The dim figure of Mitchell could be seen sitting huddled behind the stormboard. They shouted and whistled. He paid no attention.

   • 1956 September, “Notes and News: The Barby Sidings Accident Report”, in Railway Magazine, page 638:

     The guard was paying no attention whatever to the running of his train, in total disregard of rules, and, as the recently-published report of a Ministry of Transport Inspecting Officer of Railways shows, there were other disquieting features in the case, such as ignorance on the part of responsible men of rules and appendix instructions and a lax attitude to regulations of which they professed to be aware, combined with failure to look at staff notice boards.

• (to attend): give heed, pay heed, mind, pick up what someone is putting down, take heed