due

From Middle English dewe, dew, due, from Old French deü (“due”), past participle of devoir (“to owe”), from Latin dēbēre, present active infinitive of dēbeō (“I owe”), from dē- (“from”) +‎ habeō (“I have”).

• (UK) enPR: dyo͞o, jo͞o, IPA^(key): /djuː/, /dʒuː/
• (US) enPR: do͞o, IPA^(key): /du/

  • Audio (US)

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• (General Australian, New Zealand) enPR: jo͞o, IPA^(key): /dʒʉː/
• (Canada) IPA^(key): /d(j)uː/, /dɪu̯/
• Rhymes: -uː
• Homophone: dew
  • (yod-dropping): do, doo, doux, Doubs
  • (yod-coalescence): Jew, jew

due (comparative more due, superlative most due)

1. Owed or owing.

   Synonyms: needed, owing, to be made, required

   He is due four weeks of back pay.

   The amount due is just three quid.

   The due bills total nearly seven thousand dollars.

   He can wait for the amount due him.

2. Appropriate.

   With all due respect, you're wrong about that.

   • 1750 June 12 (date written; published 1751), T[homas] Gray, “Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard”, in Designs by Mr. R[ichard] Bentley, for Six Poems by Mr. T. Gray, London: […] R[obert] Dodsley, […], published 1753, →OCLC:

     With dirges due, in sad array, / Slow through the churchway path we saw him borne.

3. Scheduled; expected.

   Synonyms: expected, forecast

   Rain is due this afternoon.

   The train is due in five minutes.

   When is your baby due?

   • 2022 January 12, Benedict le Vay, “The heroes of Soham...”, in RAIL, number 948, page 42:

     As he passed though the station, he slowed to yell to the signalman, Frank 'Sailor' Bridges: "Sailor - have you anything between here and Fordham? Where's the mail?" Gimbert knew the mail train was due, and he didn't want to endanger another train with his burning bomb wagon.

4. Having reached the expected, scheduled, or natural time.

   Synonym: expected

   The baby is just about due.

   • 1963, Margery Allingham, chapter 1, in The China Governess: A Mystery, London: Chatto & Windus, →OCLC:

     The huge square box, parquet-floored and high-ceilinged, had been arranged to display a suite of bedroom furniture designed and made in the halcyon days of the last quarter of the nineteenth century, when modish taste was just due to go clean out of fashion for the best part of the next hundred years.

5. Owing; ascribable, as to a cause.

   The dangerously low water table is due to rapidly growing pumping.

   • 1852, James David Forbes, “Dissertation on the Progress of Mathematical and Physical Science”, in Encyclopædia Britannica:

     the milky aspect be due to a confusion of small stars

   • 1921, Ben Travers, chapter 2, in A Cuckoo in the Nest, Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, Page & Company, published 1925, →OCLC:

     Mother […] considered that the exclusiveness of Peter's circle was due not to its distinction, but to the fact that it was an inner Babylon of prodigality and whoredom, from which every Kensingtonian held aloof, except on the conventional tip-and-run excursions in pursuit of shopping, tea and theatres.

6. On a direct bearing, especially for the four points of the compass

   The town is 5 miles due North of the bridge.

due (comparative more due, superlative most due)

1. (used with compass directions) Directly; exactly.

   The river runs due north for about a mile.

due (plural dues)

1. Deserved acknowledgment.

   Give him his due – he is a good actor.

   • 1952 January, Henry Maxwell, “Farewell to the "T14s"”, in Railway Magazine, page 57:

     Yes, the tide will surely turn, and meanwhile may one who is proud to call himself a partisan, invite whomever may feel disposed to bid the "T14s" adieux, to pause before giving them valediction and accord to them the respect that is assuredly their due.

   • 2015 January 31, Daniel Taylor, “David Silva seizes point for Manchester City as Chelsea are checked”, in The Guardian (London)‎:

     Chelsea, to give them their due, did start to cut out the defensive lapses as the game went on but they needed to because their opponents were throwing everything at them in those stages and, if anything, seemed encouraged by the message that Mourinho’s Rémy-Cahill switch sent out.

2. (in the plural) A membership fee.
3. That which is owed; debt; that which belongs or may be claimed as a right; whatever custom, law, or morality requires to be done, duty.
   • c. 1597 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The First Part of Henry the Fourth, […]”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act I, scene ii]:

     He will give the devil his due.

   • 1842, Alfred Tennyson, “The Lotos-Eaters”, in Poems. […], volume I, London: Edward Moxon, […], →OCLC, stanza 8, page 184:

     Chanted from an ill-used race of men that cleave the soil, / Sow the seed, and reap the harvest with enduring toil, / Storing yearly little dues of wheat, and wine and oil; […]

   • 1850, [Alfred, Lord Tennyson], In Memoriam, London: Edward Moxon, […], →OCLC, Canto XXXVII, page 57:

     For I am but an earthly Muse,
     ⁠And owning but a little art
     ⁠To lull with song an aching heart,
     And render human love his dues; […]

4. Right; just title or claim.
   • 1667, John Milton, “Book II”, in Paradise Lost. […], London: […] [Samuel Simmons], […], →OCLC; republished as Paradise Lost in Ten Books: […], London: Basil Montagu Pickering […], 1873, →OCLC:

     The key of this infernal pit by due […] I keep.

• light due

• give someone his due
• give the devil his due

• “due”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.
• “due”, in The Century Dictionary […], New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911, →OCLC.
• “due”, in OneLook Dictionary Search.

• Deu., edu

Inherited from Proto-Malayo-Polynesian *duha.

due

1. two

From Old Norse dúfa, from Proto-Germanic *dūbǭ, cognate with Norwegian due, Swedish duva, Dutch duif, German Taube, English dove.

• IPA^(key): /duːə/, [ˈd̥uːu]
• Synonym: duge

due c (singular definite duen, plural indefinite duer)

1. pigeon, dove

From du +‎ -e.

• IPA^(key): /ˈdue/
• Rhymes: -ue

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due

1. secondly

• IPA^(key): /dy/

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due f sg

1. feminine singular of dû

• “due”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.

From du (“two”) +‎ -e.

• IPA^(key): /ˈdu̯e/

due

1. both

   Synonym: ambe (neologism)

• dui (archaic, literary)
• duo m or f (archaic, literary)

From Latin duae, feminine plural of duo, from Proto-Italic *duō, from Proto-Indo-European *dwóh₁.

• IPA^(key): /ˈdu.e/

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• Rhymes: -ue
• Hyphenation: dù‧e

due (invariable)

1. two

due m (invariable)

1. two

• → Norwegian Bokmål: due

due

1. Alternative form of dewe (“due”)

due

1. Alternative form of dewe (“due”)

• IPA^(key): /ˈdu.e/

due

1. Alternative form of dué (“two”)

From Old Norse dúfa (“dove, pigeon”), from Proto-Germanic *dūbǭ (“dove, pigeon”), from Proto-Indo-European *dʰewbʰ- (“hazy, unclear, dark; deep”). Cognate with Danish due, Swedish duva, Icelandic dúfa, Dutch duif, German Taube, English dove. The sense “politician favouring conciliation” is a semantic loan from English dove.

• IPA^(key): /ˈdʉːə/

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• Rhymes: -ʉːə
• Hyphenation: du‧e

due f or m (definite singular dua or duen, indefinite plural duer, definite plural duene)

1. (zoology) a dove or pigeon; culver (one of several birds of the family Columbidae, which consists of more than 300 species)
   • (Can we date this quote?), The Bible, Matt 10,16:

     vær kloke som slanger og troskyldige som duer

     be wise as serpents and faithful as doves

   • 1949, Johan Borgen, Jenny og påfuglen, page 34:

     enkelte av disse blide duer var tilmed så foretaksomme at de ikke nøyde seg med å legge brev og aviser fra seg på det store bordet i hålen

     some of these cheerful pigeons were even so enterprising that they did not content themselves with leaving letters and newspapers on the big table in the hole

   • 1874, Henrik Ibsen, Peer Gynt, page 161:

     falk og due, due og falk

     falcon and dove, dove and falcon

   leke hauk og due

   play hawk and dove; a game in which one participant tries to catch the other

   1. (humorous, in the plural) a couple that is very much in love
      • 1885, Henrik Ibsen, Brand, page 89:

        hej, øves leg af kælne duer på disse ørkenbrune tuer!

        hey, practice playing with cuddly pigeons on these desert brown tufts!

      Synonym: turteldue

   2. (poetic) a dove (term of endearment for a woman one holds dearly)
      • (Can we date this quote?), The Bible, Song of Songs 5,2:

        lukk opp for mig, min søster, min elskede, min due, min fullkomne

        open up to me, my sister, my beloved, my dove, my perfect

   3. (figuratively) a symbol of peace and reconciliation

      fredens due ― dove of peace

      Synonym: fredsdue

   4. (politics) a dove (a person favouring conciliation and negotiation rather than conflict)
      • 1968, Pax, page 11:

        den selvsamme «hauk» som tapte for den republikanske «duen» Hatfield ved senatsvalget

        the very "hawk" who lost to the Republican "dove" Hatfield in the Senate election

      • 1971, Dagbladet, page 12:

        senator Edward M. Kennedy – en av «duene» i amerikansk politikk når det gjelder Vietnam-krigen

        Senator Edward M. Kennedy - one of the "doves" of American politics in the Vietnam War

   5. (Christianity) a symbol of the Holy Spirit
      • (Can we date this quote?), The Bible, Matt 3,16:

        [Jesus] så Guds ånd komme ned over seg som en due

        [Jesus] saw the Spirit of God coming down upon him like a dove

      • 1885, Henrik Ibsen, Brand, page 219:

        Guds klarheds due sidder skjult; ve, aldrig over mig den dalte

        The dove of God's clarity sits hidden; woe, never upon me it fell

2. (sports) a clay pigeon (a flying target used as moving target in sport shooting)

   Synonym: leirdue

From the pronoun du (“you”), from Old Norse þú (“you”), from Proto-Germanic *þū (“you”), from Proto-Indo-European *túh₂ (“you”).

due (passive dues, imperative du, present tense duer, simple past and past participle duet, present participle duende, verbal noun duing)

1. (colloquial, transitive) to say du (you) to someone

   Synonyms: dutte, duse

   • 1910, Nini Roll Anker, Per Haukeberg, page 206:

     det var vel rimelig du maatte due en slik kar

     it was probably reasonable you had to say you to such a guy

Misspelling, or a dialectal form, of duge (“to help; be useful”), from Old Norse duga (“to help, aid; do, suffice”), from Proto-Germanic *duganą (“to be useful, avail”), from Proto-Indo-European *dʰedʰówgʰe (“to be productive”), from the root *dʰewgʰ- (“to produce; be strong, have force”).

due

1. Misspelling of duge.

From Italian due (“two”), from Latin duae, feminine plural of duo (“two”), from Proto-Italic *duō (“two”), from Proto-Indo-European *dwóh₁ (“two”).

• IPA^(key): /ˈduːə/

• Audio

  (file)

• Rhymes: -uːə
• Hyphenation: du‧e

due

1. Only used in a due (“indicating two musicians or sections play together”)

• “due” in The Bokmål Dictionary.
• “due_1” in Det Norske Akademis ordbok (NAOB).
• “due_2” in Det Norske Akademis ordbok (NAOB).
• “due_3” in Det Norske Akademis ordbok (NAOB).
• “duer” in Store norske leksikon

From Old Norse dúfa, from Proto-Germanic *dūbǭ. Compare Danish due, Swedish duva, Icelandic dúfa, Dutch duif, German Taube, English dove.

• IPA^(key): /²dʉːə/

due f (definite singular dua, indefinite plural duer, definite plural duene)

1. A bird of the family Columbidae, the pigeons and doves.

• “due” in The Nynorsk Dictionary.

Common contraction of du (“you (sing.)”) and e, colloquial pronunciation spelling of är (“are”).

due

1. (nonstandard, text messaging, Internet slang) ur, you're, you are

   due fett fin asså ― ur really good-looking y'know

   ja venne om due på ― I dunno if ur in