Due

Pronunciation

• UK IPA: /djuː/
• Homophones: dew
• US enPR: doÍžo, IPA: /du/
• Homophones: dew, do, doo
• Rhymes: -uː

Origin

From Middle English, from Old French deu ("due"), past participle of devoir ("to owe"), from Latin debere ("to owe"), from de ("from") + habere ("to have")

Full definition of due

Adjective

1. Owed or owing.
   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.
• GrayWith dirges due, in sad array,
  Slow through the churchway path we saw him borne.
3. Scheduled; expected.
   Rain is due this afternoon.
   The train is due in five minutes.
   When is your baby due?
4. Having reached the expected, scheduled, or natural time.
   The baby is just about due.
• 1963, Margery Allingham, The China Governess Chapter 1, 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.
• J. D. ForbesThis effect is due to the attraction of the sun.
• 1922, Ben Travers, A Cuckoo in the Nest Chapter 2, 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.

Synonyms

• (owed or owing) needed, owing, to be made, required
• (appropriate)
• (scheduled, expected) expected, forecast
• (having reached the scheduled or natural time) expected

Derived terms

• driving without due care and attention
• due date
• due to
• in due time
• taxes due
• with all due respect

Adverb

1. (used with compass directions) Directly; exactly.The river runs due north for about a mile.

Noun

1. Deserved acknowledgment.Give him his due — he is a good actor.
2. (in plural dues) 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.
• ShakespeareHe will give the devil his due.
• TennysonYearly little dues of wheat, and wine, and oil.
4. Right; just title or claim.
• MiltonThe key of this infernal pit by due ... I keep.

Derived terms

• give someone his due
• give the devil his due

Anagrams

• Deu.