duty
Pluralduties
- 1The work a person is expected to carry out in a given job or position, usually spoken of in the plural.
The new manager will take over his duties at the start of next month.
His chief duty as treasurer is keeping the club's accounts in order.
UsageYou carry out, take up or neglect your duties; simply being at work is on duty.
Similarresponsibility, task, role, function, work
- 2Something a person is morally or legally obligated to do.
Every citizen has a duty to obey the law.
She felt a strong duty to care for her aging parents.
UsageUsually a duty to do something (a duty to obey the law); also the set phrase do your duty.
Similarobligation, responsibility, commitment, onus
Note
The sense the whole word hangs on: Middle English duete, from Anglo-Norman dueté (equivalent to dewe "due" plus -te), so a duty is at root what is due from you. Used uncountably, it names obligation itself, as in Nelson's 1805 signal that England expects every man to do his duty. In the plural it often narrows to the tasks of a post, like the duties a servant performs in Georgette Heyer's The Unknown Ajax (1959).
- 3
- 4A tax charged on certain goods or transactions, especially on goods that are imported or exported.
Importers paid a hefty duty on every shipment of steel.
The government lowered duties on foreign electronics last year.
UsageUsually a duty on something (duties on imports), often with a word naming the kind: customs duty, excise duty.
Less common meanings
- 5A discreet term for a dog, or sometimes a person, urinating or defecating.
We stood in the rain for ten minutes while the puppy sniffed every bush before finally doing its duty.
Each morning he let the dog out back to perform its duty.
UsageUsually in the set phrase do (or perform) its duty, most often of a dog.
Similarbusiness
Note
A euphemism that plays on the moral sense. In Will Judy's Training the Dog (1927), good housebreaking makes it easy for a puppy "to do his duty."
- 6Something one is owed; a debt or fee.
Take that which is thy duty, and goo thy waye.
1526, [William Tyndale, transl.], The Newe Testamẽt (Tyndale Bible)Note
Here the word keeps closest to its root in due, but it faces the other way: not what you owe but what is owed to you. Tyndale's New Testament of 1526 has "Take that which is thy duty, and goo thy waye." The sense is obsolete, so a modern reader meeting it should not hear the moral obligation. It means a payment, and today due or fee says it.
Checked 5 Nov 2026 · 5 facts
- Duty derives from due. en.wiktionary.org
- This obsolete sense denotes something owed to someone, including a payment. en.wiktionary.org
- Tyndale's complete New Testament was first published in 1526. gutenberg.org
- Tyndale's New Testament contains the quotation with the wording given. en.wiktionary.org
- In the quoted passage, duty means payment. gutenberg.org
- 7Respect, reverence, or an act of homage shown to someone.
It [the letter] was written with a plain, unaffected, homely piety that I knew to be genuine, and ended with ‘my duty to my ever darling’—meaning myself.
1849, Charles Dickens, The Personal History of David CopperfieldNote
A courtesy formula more than a feeling. "My duty to you both," the Duke of Burgundy tells the two kings in Shakespeare's Henry V, and the phrase can close a letter as a token of respect. Dickens still has it in David Copperfield (1849–50), where a letter ends "my duty to my ever darling."
- 8The work an engine does for each unit of fuel burned, as a measure of its efficiency.
Practice
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Origin
From Middle English duete, borrowed from Anglo-Norman dueté, equivalent to "due" plus the suffix "-ty".