Debt vs Duty - What's the difference?
debt | duty |
An action, state of mind, or object one has an obligation to perform for another, adopt toward another, or give to another.
* 1589 , (William Shakespeare), Henry IV, Part I , act 1, sc. 3,
* 1850 , (Nathaniel Hawthorne), (The Scarlet Letter) , ch. 14,
The state or condition of owing something to another.
Money that one person or entity owes or is required to pay to another, generally as a result of a loan or other financial transaction.
* 1919 , (Upton Sinclair), Jimmie Higgins , ch. 15,
* {{quote-magazine, date=2013-06-22, volume=407, issue=8841, page=70, magazine=(The Economist)
, title= (legal) An action at law to recover a certain specified sum of money alleged to be due.
That which one is morally or legally obligated to do.
:
*1805 , 21 October,
*:England expects that every man will do his duty .
*
*:Captain Edward Carlisle; he could not tell what this prisoner might do. He cursed the fate which had assigned such a duty , cursed especially that fate which forced a gallant soldier to meet so superb a woman as this under handicap so hard.
*{{quote-book, year=1959, author=(Georgette Heyer), title=(The Unknown Ajax), chapter=1
, passage=Charles had not been employed above six months at Darracott Place, but he was not such a whopstraw as to make the least noise in the performance of his duties when his lordship was out of humour.}}
*{{quote-magazine, date=2013-08-10, volume=408, issue=8848, magazine=(The Economist), author=Lexington
, title= A period of time spent at work or doing a particular task.
:
Describing a workload as to its idle, working and de-energized periods.
A tax placed on imports or exports; a tariff.
(lb) One's due, something one is owed; a debt or fee.
*1526 , (William Tyndale), trans. Bible , (w) XX:
*:Take that which is thy duty , and goo thy waye.
(lb) Respect; reverence; regard; act of respect; homage.
*(William Shakespeare) (c.1564–1616)
*:my duty to you
The efficiency of an engine, especially a steam pumping engine, as measured by work done by a certain quantity of fuel; usually, the number of pounds of water lifted one foot by one bushel of coal (94 lbs. old standard), or by 1 cwt. (112 lbs., England, or 100 lbs., United States).
As nouns the difference between debt and duty
is that debt is an action, state of mind, or object one has an obligation to perform for another, adopt toward another, or give to another while duty is that which one is morally or legally obligated to do.debt
English
(wikipedia debt)Alternative forms
* (l) (obsolete)Noun
(en noun)- Revenge the jeering and disdain'd contempt
- Of this proud king, who studies day and night
- To answer all the debt he owes to you
- Even with the bloody payment of your deaths.
- This long debt of confidence, due from me to him, whose bane and ruin I have been, shall at length be paid.
- Bolsheviki had repudiated the four-billion-dollar debt which the government of the Tsar had contracted with the bankers.
Engineers of a different kind, passage=Private-equity nabobs bristle at being dubbed mere financiers. Piling debt onto companies’ balance-sheets is only a small part of what leveraged buy-outs are about, they insist. Improving the workings of the businesses they take over is just as core to their calling, if not more so. Much of their pleading is public-relations bluster.}}
- (Burrill)
Derived terms
* bad debt * debt exchange * debt-equity ratio * debt-laden * debt of honor * domestic debt * external debt * foreign debt * in debt * national debt * technical debtExternal links
* *duty
English
Noun
(duties)Keeping the mighty honest, passage=British journalists shun complete respectability, feeling a duty to be ready to savage the mighty, or rummage through their bins. Elsewhere in Europe, government contracts and subsidies ensure that press barons will only defy the mighty so far.}}