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n way, from an established rule, etc.; departure, as from the right course or the path of duty.

Duty; service owed; hence, due act of civility or respect; -- now usually in the plural; as, they paid their devoirs to the ladies. "Do now your devoid, young knights!" Chaucer.

Same as Due, or Duty. [Obs.] Spenser.

To pay out; to expend; -- usually from a public fund or treasury. The duty of collecting and disbursing his revenues. Macaulay. Disbursing officer, an officer in any department of the public service who is charged with the duty of paying out public money.

rged of business, void of strife. Dryden. In one man's fault discharge another man of his duty. L'Estrange.

peech; treatise; dissertation; sermon, etc.; as, the preacher gave us a long discourse on duty.

f dishonor or disesteem; ill repute; reproach; -- applied to persons or things. It is the duty of every Christian to be concerned for the reputation or discredit his life may bring on his profession. Rogers.

itting to do what is commanded, or doing what is prohibited; refractory; not observant of duty or rules prescribed by authority; -- applied to persons and acts. This disobedient spirit in the colonies. Burke. Disobedient unto the word of the Lord. 1 Kings xiii. 26.

food. Men love to hear of their power, but have an extreme disrelish to be told of their duty. Burke.

on of a wrongdoer, by way of pledge for redress of an injury, or for the performance of a duty, as for nonpayment of rent or taxes, or for injury done by cattle, etc.

on; to execute; to transact to carry out in action; as, to do a good or a bad act; do our duty; to do what I can. Six days shalt thou labor and do all thy work. Ex. xx. 9. We did not do these things. Ld. Lytton. You can not do wrong without suffering wrong. Emerson. Hence: To do homage, honor, favor, justice, etc., to…

To evade a duty by low craft; to practice mean shifts; to use tricky devices; to play fast and loose; to quibble. Some dodging casuist with more craft than sincerity. Milton.

Fulfilling duty; dutiful; having the sentiments due to a superior, or to one to whom respect or service is owed; obedient; as, a duteous son or daughter.

Subject to the payment of a duty; as dutiable goods. [U.S.] All kinds of dutiable merchandise. Hawthorne.

Subjected to a duty. Ames.

Controlled by, proceeding from, a sense of duty; respectful; deferential; as, dutiful affection.

Impudence or boldness in confronting or in transgressing the bounds of duty or decorum; insulting presumptuousness; shameless boldness; barefaced assurance. Corruption lost nothing of its effrontery. Bancroft.

To run away, or escape privately, from the place or station to which one is bound by duty; -- said especially of a woman or a man, either married or unmarried, who runs away with a paramour or a sweetheart. Great numbers of them [the women] have eloped from their allegiance. Addison.

Honorably discharged from the performance of public duty on account of age, infirmity, or long and faithful services; -- said of an officer of a college or pastor of a church.

To have or keep at work; to give employment or occupation to; to intrust with some duty or behest; as, to employ a hundred workmen; to employ an envoy. Jonathan . . . and Jahaziah . . . were employed about this matter. Ezra x. 15. Thy vineyard must employ the sturdy steer To turn the glebe. Dryden. To employ one's self…