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Another word for duty

a-z
Noun

  1. An act or course of action that is demanded of one, as by position, custom, law, or religion

      1. Condition, quality, fact, or instance of being responsible; obligation, accountability, dependability, etc.
      2. Something for which one is responsible; a duty, obligation, or burden.
      3. (Military) The obligation to carry forward an assigned task to a successful conclusion. With responsibility goes authority to direct and take the necessary action to ensure success. (JP 1-02 Department of Defense Dictionary of Military and Associated Terms).
      1. The constraining power of a promise, contract, law, or sense of duty:
      2. The state, fact, or feeling of being indebted to another for a special service or favor received:
      3. A social, legal, or moral requirement, such as a duty, contract, or promise, that compels one to follow or avoid a particular course of action:
      1. Necessity or obligation created by some situation
      2. A lack of something useful, required, or desired
      3. A condition or situation in which something must be supplied in order for a certain condition to be maintained or a desired state to be achieved:
      1. The unfermented or fermenting juice expressed from fruit, especially grapes.
      2. A state of frenzy in animals, esp. in the male elephant, usually associated with sexual heat
      3. Something that is absolutely required or indispensable:
      1. A verb form of the imperative mood.
      2. A command; an order.
      3. A rule, principle, or need that requires or compels certain action:
      1. Official consignment by court order of a person as to prison or a mental hospital
      2. Something pledged, especially an engagement by contract involving financial obligation.
      3. A financial liability undertaken, as an agreement to buy or sell securities
      1. Expense; cost:
      2. The maximum or necessary quantity, as of fuel, that a container or apparatus is built to hold; also, the actual quantity held
      3. Care; custody:
      1. A source of great worry or stress; weight:
      2. Something that is emotionally difficult to bear.
      3. Anything one has to bear or put up with; heavy load, as of work, duty, responsibility, or sorrow
    See also:

    obligation

  2. A piece of work that has been assigned

    See also:

    work

  3. The condition of being put to use

    See also:

    used

  4. A compulsory contribution, usually of money, that is required for the support of a government

      1. A fee or dues levied on the members of an organization to meet its expenses.
      2. A special assessment, as in a society, labor union, etc.
      3. A compulsory payment, usually a percentage, levied on income, property value, sales price, etc. for the support of a government
      1. A duty or duties so imposed.
      2. A list or system of taxes placed by a government upon exports or, esp., imports
      3. A tax of this kind, or its rate
      1. The act or process of levying.
      2. An amount levied; tax, fine, etc.
      3. An imposing and collecting of a tax or other payment
      1. (Sports) The weight a horse must carry in a handicap race.
      2. Something, such as a tax or duty, that is imposed.
      3. A tax; esp., a duty on imported goods
      1. An amount assessed
      2. The act of assessing; appraisal.
      3. The act of assessing or an amount (of tax, levy or duty etc) assessed.
    See also:

    politics

    pay

    money

© Roget’s II: The New Thesaurus Copyright © 2010 by Wiley Publishing, Inc., Cleveland, Ohio. Used by arrangement with John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Another word for duty

Noun

  1. A personal sense of what one should do

    See also:

    responsibility

    Antonyms:

  2. Whatever one has to do

      1. The state, quality, or fact of being responsible.
      2. (Military) The obligation for the proper custody, care, and safekeeping of property or funds entrusted to the possession or supervision of an individual. (JP 1-02 Department of Defense Dictionary of Military and Associated Terms).
      3. (Military) The obligation to carry forward an assigned task to a successful conclusion. With responsibility goes authority to direct and take the necessary action to ensure success. (JP 1-02 Department of Defense Dictionary of Military and Associated Terms).
      1. Plural form of pain
      2. (used in plural) Trouble taken doing something; attention to detail; careful effort.
      1. A hard or unpleasant task
      2. An unpleasant or burdensome task:
      3. A small routine task, as of a housekeeper or farmer
      1. A scripted piece of entertainment, especially in a nightclub or theater:
      2. A set of normal procedures, often performed mechanically
      3. A regular, more or less unvarying procedure, customary, prescribed, or habitual, as of business or daily life
      1. (Education) a task given to students, homework or coursework
      2. The act of assigning:
      3. (Law) a transfer of something from one person to another, especially property, or a claim or right; the document that effects this transfer
      1. The action of engaging or the state of being engaged:
      2. A specific, often limited, period of employment:
      3. A promise or agreement to be at a particular place at a particular time:
      1. The act of granting certain powers or the authority to carry out a particular task or duty.
      2. An entrusting, as of power and authority, to a person or body
      3. (Mil.) An official certificate conferring rank; specif., a document issued by the government, making one a commissioned officer in the U.S. armed forces
      1. Specifically, the business of an undertaker, or the management of funerals.
      2. The act of one who undertakes, or engages in, any project or business.
      3. That which is undertaken; any business, work, or project which a person engages in, or attempts to perform; an enterprise.
      1. A repeated, central idea; theme
      2. A source of great worry or stress; weight:
      3. Anything one has to bear or put up with; heavy load, as of work, duty, responsibility, or sorrow
      1. Any of various conflicts or rebellions in Ireland or Northern Ireland, especially the period of social unrest in Northern Ireland beginning in 1969.
      2. A state of distress, affliction, difficulty, or need:
      3. A person, circumstance, or event that causes annoyance, distress, difficulty, etc.
      1. (Law) A legal relationship in which one party holds a title to property while another party has the entitlement to the beneficial use of that property.
      2. A combination of firms or corporations for the purpose of reducing competition and controlling prices throughout a business or industry.
      3. An industrial or business combination, now illegal in the U.S., in which management and control of the member corporations are vested in a single board of trustees, who are thus able to control a market, absorb or eliminate competition, fix prices, etc.
      1. The post, building, base, or headquarters assigned to a group of people working together, as in providing a service, making scientific observations, etc.
      2. The place, building, or establishment from which a service is provided or operations are directed:
      3. An area where a person is assigned to work.
      1. Something pledged, especially an engagement by contract involving financial obligation.
      2. The act or an instance of committing, especially:
      3. The state of being emotionally or intellectually devoted, as to a belief, a course of action, or another person:
      1. The writing or document containing such an agreement.
      2. A paid assignment to murder someone:
      3. An agreement between two or more people to do something, esp. one formally set forth in writing and enforceable by law; compact; covenant
      1. The constraining power of a promise, contract, law, or sense of duty:
      2. A social, legal, or moral requirement, such as a duty, contract, or promise, that compels one to follow or avoid a particular course of action:
      3. The state, fact, or feeling of being indebted to another for a special service or favor received:
      1. A goal or ambition to which a person or group is especially dedicated
      2. A body of persons sent to a foreign land by a religious organization, especially a Christian organization, to spread its faith or provide educational, medical, and other assistance.
      3. An organization for carrying on missionary work in a territory.
      1. Work done or duty performed for another or others
      2. Work done for a master or feudal lord
      3. The performance of work or duties for a superior or as a servant:
      1. (Heraldry) A figure or device represented on the field of an escutcheon.
      2. The departure from electrical neutrality at a point, or in a region, as by the accumulation, or deficit, of electrical particles: more electrons than normal produce a negative charge; fewer, a positive charge
      3. The net measure of this property possessed by a body or contained in a bounded region of space.
      1. A job or occupation.
      2. A strong urge to become religious.
      3. An inner urge or a strong impulse, especially one believed to be divinely inspired.
      1. Something a person must do; share of work or duty
      2. One's responsibility, duty, or obligation; share:
      3. A role:
      1. An area of knowledge, activity, or interest:
      2. Areas of a country situated away from the capital or population center.
      3. A division of the world, smaller than a region, with reference to the plants or animals found there
      1. A commercial enterprise or establishment:
      2. An incidental action performed by an actor on the stage to fill a pause between lines or to provide interesting detail.
      3. One's work, occupation, or profession
      1. The action or purpose for which a person or thing is suited or employed, especially:
      2. A special duty or performance required in the course of work or activity
      3. The special action or physiological property of an organ or a body part.
      1. An occupying or being occupied; specif., the seizure and control of a country or area by military forces
      2. The act or process of holding or possessing a place.
      3. That which chiefly engages one's time; (one's) trade, profession, or business
      1. An undertaking involving labor or difficulty
      2. A function to be performed; an objective:
      3. A piece of work assigned or done as part of one's duties.
      1. The building, room, or series of rooms in which the affairs of a business, professional person, branch of government, etc. are carried on
      2. (Chiefly British) The parts of a house, such as the laundry and kitchen, in which servants carry out household work.
      3. A function or duty assigned to someone, esp. as an essential part of his or her work or position
      1. (Physics) The transfer of energy from one physical system to another, especially the application of a force to move a body in a certain direction. It is calculated as the product of the force and the distance over which it is applied and is expressed in joules, ergs, and foot-pounds.
      2. A factory, plant, or similar building or complex of buildings where a specific type of business or industry is carried on. Often used in combination:
      3. The part of a day devoted to an occupation or undertaking:
    See also:

    job

    Antonyms:

  3. A levy, especially on goods

      1. Any list or scale of prices, charges, etc.
      2. A list or system of taxes placed by a government upon exports or, esp., imports
      3. (Informal) Any bill, charge, fare, etc.
      1. (Law) Such usage as by common consent and long-established, uniform practice has taken on the force of law
      2. Habitual patronage, as of a store:
      3. The government agency in charge of collecting these duties, or any of its offices
      1. The governmental service that collects certain taxes
      2. All the income produced by a particular source.
      3. The income of a government from all sources appropriated for the payment of the public expenses.
      1. Expense; cost:
      2. The command to attack:
      3. A claim of wrongdoing; an accusation:
    See also:

    tax

Idioms:

    off-duty

    2. on-duty

© WEBSTER’S NEW WORLD® ROGET’S A-Z THESAURUS by Charlton Laird and the editors of Webster’s New World dictionaries. Copyright © 1999 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

Sentence Examples

  • The sheriff has a duty to investigate.

  • I'm off duty, you know.

  • He was on light duty, working only with small animals; and part time.

  • More like my duty position.

  • It was Carl's duty to sit outside of the king's bedroom and be ready to serve him at any time.

More sentences →

Words that mention duty in the Dictionary

Words near duty in the Thesaurus