due
Language: English
Part of speech: adj
Pronunciation: note: without the yod-coalescence
ipa: /djuː/
enpr: dyo͞o
note: without the yod-coalescence
note: yod-coalescence
ipa: /dʒuː/
enpr: jo͞o
note: yod-coalescence
note: yod-dropping
enpr: do͞o
ipa: /du/
note: yod-dropping
enpr: jo͞o
ipa: /dʒʉː/
ipa: /dju/
ipa: /dɪu̯/
note: more recent, yod-dropping
ipa: /du/
rhymes: -uː
homophone: dew
homophone: do
homophone: doo
homophone: doux
homophone: Doubs (yod-dropping)
homophone: Jew
homophone: jew (yod-coalescence)
Forms: form: more due
form: most due
Etymology: From Middle English dewe, dew, due, from Old French deü (“due”), past participle of devoir (“to owe”), from Latin dēbēre (“to owe”), from dē- (“from”) + habeō (“to have”).
Senses: examples: text: He is due four weeks of back pay.
text: The amount due is just three quid.
text: The due bills total nearly seven thousand dollars.
text: He can wait for the amount due him.
synonyms: needed
owing
to be made
required
glosses: Owed or owing.
examples: text: With all due respect, you're wrong about that.
text: With dirges due, in sad array, / Slow through the churchway path we saw him borne.
ref: 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:
glosses: Appropriate.
examples: text: Rain is due this afternoon.
text: The train is due in five minutes.
text: When is your baby due?
text: 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.
ref: 2022 January 12, Benedict le Vay, “The heroes of Soham...”, in RAIL, number 948, page 42:
synonyms: expected
forecast
glosses: Scheduled; expected.
examples: text: The baby is just about due.
text: 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.
ref: 1963, Margery Allingham, chapter 1, in The China Governess: A Mystery, London: Chatto & Windus, →OCLC:
synonyms: expected
glosses: Having reached the expected, scheduled, or natural time.
examples: text: The dangerously low water table is due to rapidly growing pumping.
text: the milky aspect be due to a confusion of small stars
ref: 1852, James David Forbes, “Dissertation on the Progress of Mathematical and Physical Science”, in Encyclopædia Britannica:
text: 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.
ref: 1921, Ben Travers, chapter 2, in A Cuckoo in the Nest, Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, Page & Company, published 1925, →OCLC:
glosses: Owing; ascribable, as to a cause.
examples: text: The town is 5 miles due North of the bridge.
glosses: On a direct bearing, especially for the four points of the compass.
Derived terms: credit where credit's due
due and payable
duebill
due care and attention
due course
due date
due diligence
dueful
dueness
due place
due process
due process of law
due to
duly
fall due
give credit where credit is due
in due course
in due time
make due
overdue
postage due
postage-due stamp
postage due stamp
tax due
taxes due
underdue
undue
with all due respect
with due respect