Duties

How to spell duties

6 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce duties

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does duties mean?

1. nounTasks or moral obligations that a person is required to perform, especially as part of a job or role.
2. nounTaxes levied by a government on goods being imported or exported.

Duties in a sentence

• Her duties include managing the rota and approving expenses.

• Travellers must declare expensive purchases and pay the relevant duties.

• The new manager outlined the daily duties for each team member.

• The company paid heavy duties on the electronics it imported.

Where does duties come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word traces back to the Latin verb debere, meaning 'to owe', which also gave English the words 'debt' and 'due'. From debere, Old French developed deu and the related noun dueté, describing what one owes or is obliged to give. English borrowed it in the 1300s as 'duty', covering both moral obligation and the practical sense of payments owed to a ruler or the state. The plural 'duties' follows the regular English rule for nouns ending in a consonant plus -y, where the y becomes i before adding -es, which is the small spelling shift worth remembering. The customs meaning, a tax 'owed' on goods, grew naturally out of that same idea of something being due to the authorities.

How the word is built

• dut- (from Latin debere, to owe)
• -y (noun suffix)
• -es (plural, with y changing to i)