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Hence: A full collection or set of implements, or utensils, for a given duty, experimental or operative; any complex instrument or appliance, mechanical or chemical, for a specific action or operation; machinery; mechanism.

A distinct part. "Upon each article of human duty." Paley. "Each article of time." Habington. The articles which compose the blood. E. Darwin.

Sharpness; disagreeableness; difficulty. The acclivities and asperities of duty. Barrow.

To accompany or be present or near at hand, in pursuance of duty; to be ready for service; to wait or be in waiting; -- often followed by on or upon. He was required to attend upon the committee. Clarendon.

Depending on, or owing duty or service to; as, the widow attendant to the heir. Cowell. Attendant keys (Mus.), the keys or scales most nearly related to, or having most in common with, the principal key; those, namely, of its fifth above, or dominant, its fifth below (fourth above), or subdominant, and its relative min…

An officer of the king's stables whose duty it was to provide oats for the horses. [Obs.]

A tariff or duty on goods, etc. [Obs.]

A calling away; a diversion. [Obs. or Archaic] Impulses to duty, and powerful avocations from sin. South.

The act of one who backslides; abandonment of faith or duty. Our backslidings are many. Jer. xiv. 7.

sage, in France and Prussia, the most effective part of the population liable to military duty and not in the standing army.

A fraudulent breach of duty or willful act of known illegality on the part of a master of a ship, in his character of master, or of the mariners, to the injury of the owner of the ship or cargo, and without his consent. It includes every breach of trust committed with dishonest purpose, as by running away with the ship…

The duty or privilege of the marriage bed. Shak.

To be necessary for; to be fit for; to be meet for, with respect to necessity, duty, or convenience; -- mostly used impersonally. And thus it behooved Christ to suffer. Luke xxiv. 46. [Also written behove.]

to have. Hence: To be fit, suitable, or proper for, or worthy of; to become; to befit. A duty well beseeming the preachers. Clarendon. What form of speech or behavior beseemeth us, in our prayers to God Hocker.

Fig.: To oblige, restrain, or hold, by authority, law, duty, promise, vow, affection, or other moral tie; as, to bind the conscience; to bind by kindness; bound by affection; commerce binds nations to each other. Who made our laws to bind us, not himself. Milton.

A mode of tenure by the payment of a small duty in white rent (silver) or otherwise.

A post-office clerk whose duty is to decipher obscure addresses.

Moral or political duty or obligation. I love your majesty According to my bond, nor more nor less. Shak.

Obligation; tie of duty. He must resolve by no means to be . . . brought under the bondage of onserving oaths. South.

ome favor rendered; obliged; beholden. This holy word, that teacheth us truly our bounden duty toward our Lord God in every point. Ridley.