Emily Dickinson Lexicon

BUY, v.t. [pret. and pp. bought, pron. bawt. Sax. bigan, or bycgan, bygan; Goth. bugyan, to buy.]

1. To acquire the property, right or title to any thing, by paying a consideration or an equivalent in money. It differs from barter only in this, that in barter the consideration or equivalent is some species of commodity; in purchase, the consideration is money paid or promised. To purchase; to acquire by paying a price to the satisfaction of the seller; opposed to sell.
2. To procure by a consideration given, or by something that is deemed worth the thing bought; to procure at a price; as, to buy pleasure with praise; to buy favor with flattery. – Denham.
3. To bribe; to corrupt or pervert the judgment, by paying a consideration. To buy off, to influence to compliance; to cause to bend or yield by some consideration; as, to buy off conscience; to detach by a consideration given; as, to buy off one from a party. To buy out, to buy off, or detach from. – Shak. #2. To purchase the share or shares of a person in a stock, fund, or partnership, by which the seller is separated from the company, and the purchaser takes his place; as, A buys out B. To purchase stock in any fund or partnership, is to buy in. To buy on credit, is to purchase a thing, on a promise in fact or in law, to make payment at a future day. To buy the refusal, is to give money for the right of purchasing at a fixed price at a future time. To buy the small pox, in South Wales, is to receive it by inoculation. – Encyc. In popular language, to buy is to pay dear for, as in Chaucer.