devoir

Duty, business; something that one must do.

Noun

  1. Duty, business; something that one must do.
    • […] he imprint not so much in his schollers mind […] where Marcellus died, as because he was unworthy of his devoire he died there[…]. - 1603, Michel de Montaigne, translated by John Florio, The Essayes […], book I,...
    • I should have long ere this paid my devoirs to the inhabitants of Raymond Castle. - 1787, “A female” [pseudonym; Winifred Marshall Gales], The History of Lady Emma Melcombe, and Her Family. By a Female. In Three...
    • [M]y eyes were oft times [on the] charmante maitresse de la maison, who glided among her guests in her flowing Spanish mantilla, and train of the clearest blonde, doing her devoirs with winning kindness, and showing how...

Origin

From Middle English devoir, borrowed from Middle French devoir, from Old French deveir, from Latin dēbēre (“to owe; ought, must”).

Forms

devoirs