Duty

How to spell duty

4 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce duty

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does duty mean?

1. nounA moral or legal obligation; a task one is bound to perform.
2. nounA tax charged by a government, especially on imported or exported goods.

Duty in a sentence

• The nurse felt it was her duty to comfort every patient.

• Travellers must pay duty on goods bought above the allowance.

• Jury duty kept him away from work for two weeks.

• The import duty on the new car added hundreds to the price.

Where does duty come from?

Language of origin: French

This word came into English in the 1300s from Anglo-French duete, an abstract noun built on the Old French deu, meaning 'owed' or 'due', which is itself the past participle of devoir 'to owe'. The chain runs back to the Latin debere, 'to owe' or 'to be bound to', the same root that gives us 'debt', 'debit', and 'due'. The earliest English sense was simply 'that which is owing', and from this idea of what one owes came the moral notion of an obligation one is bound to perform. By the seventeenth century the word had also acquired a financial sense: a payment owed to the state on goods, the customs duty we still pay today. The spelling keeps the older 'du-' from due rather than the phonetic 'doo-', which is why the silent-feeling first syllable can trip writers who hear it as 'doo-tee'.

How the word is built

• du- (from Old French deu: owed, due)
• -ty (noun suffix forming an abstract state)