Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun An act or expression of respect or courtesy; civility.
  • noun Duty or responsibility.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun Duty or service; hence, an act of civility or respect; respectful notice due to another: as, we paid our devoirs to our host.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun Duty; service owed; hence, due act of civility or respect; -- now usually in the plural.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun archaic Duty, business; something which one must do.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun formal expression of respect

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English, duty, from Old French, from devoir, to owe, from Latin dēbēre; see ghabh- in Indo-European roots.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Old French deveir (French devoir), from Latin debere ("to owe")

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