Desert vs Due - What's the difference?
desert | due | Synonyms |
(senseid)(usually in plural) That which is deserved or merited; a just punishment or reward
* 1600 , (John Dowland), (Flow My Tears)
* 1897 , (Bram Stoker), (Dracula) Chapter 21
* A. Hamilton
A barren area of land or desolate terrain, especially one with little water or vegetation; a wasteland.
* (Alexander Pope) (1688-1744)
* {{quote-book, year=1892, author=(James Yoxall)
, chapter=5, title= (label) Any barren place or situation.
* 1858 , William Howitt, Land, Labour, and Gold; Or, Two Years in Victoria (page 54)
* 2006 , Philip N. Cooke, Creative Industries in Wales: Potential and Pitfalls (page 34)
Abandoned, deserted, or uninhabited; usually of a place.
* Bible, Luke ix. 10
* Gray
To leave (anything that depends on one's presence to survive, exist, or succeed), especially when contrary to a promise or obligation; to abandon; to forsake.
To leave one's duty or post, especially to leave a military or naval unit without permission.
Owed or owing.
Appropriate.
* Gray
Scheduled; expected.
Having reached the expected, scheduled, or natural time.
* {{quote-book, year=1963, author=(Margery Allingham), title=(The China Governess)
, chapter=1 Owing; ascribable, as to a cause.
* J. D. Forbes
* {{quote-book, year=1922, author=(Ben Travers), title=(A Cuckoo in the Nest)
, chapter=2 (used with compass directions) Directly; exactly.
Deserved acknowledgment.
* {{quote-news, author=Daniel Taylor, title=David Silva seizes point for Manchester City as Chelsea are checked, work=(The Guardian) (London), date=31 January 2015
, passage=Chelsea, to give them their due , did start to cut out the defensive lapses as the game went on but they needed to because their opponents were throwing everything at them in those stages and, if anything, seemed encouraged by the message that Mourinho’s Rémy-Cahill switch sent out.}}
(in plural dues ) A membership fee.
That which is owed; debt; that which belongs or may be claimed as a right; whatever custom, law, or morality requires to be done, duty.
* Shakespeare
* Tennyson
Right; just title or claim.
* Milton
Desert is a synonym of due.
As nouns the difference between desert and due
is that desert is desert while due is deserved acknowledgment.As adjectives the difference between desert and due
is that desert is deserted while due is owed or owing.As an adverb due is
(used with compass directions) directly; exactly.desert
English
Etymology 1
(etyl) from the (etyl) deserte, fromNoun
(en noun)- From the highest spire of contentment / my fortune is thrown; / and fear and grief and pain for my deserts / are my hopes, since hope is gone.
- "Nonsense, Mina. It is a shame to me to hear such a word. I would not hear it of you. And I shall not hear it from you. May God judge me by my deserts , and punish me with more bitter suffering than even this hour, if by any act or will of mine anything ever come between us!"
- His reputation falls far below his desert .
Derived terms
* just desertsEtymology 2
(etyl) .Noun
(en noun)- Not thus the land appear'd in ages past, / A dreary desert and a gloomy waste.
The Lonely Pyramid, passage=The desert storm was riding in its strength; the travellers lay beneath the mastery of the fell simoom. Whirling wreaths and columns of burning wind, rushed around and over them.}}
- He declared that the country was an intellectual desert ; that he was famishing for spiritual aliment, and for discourse on matters beyond mere nuggets, prospectings, and the price of gold.
- So the question that is commonly asked is, why put a media incubator in a media desert and have it managed by a civil servant?
Adjective
(-)- They were marooned on a desert island in the Pacific.
- He went aside privately into a desert place.
- Full many a flower is born to blush unseen, / And waste its sweetness on the desert air.
Derived terms
* desert boot * desert island * desert lynx * desert pavement * desert pea * desert rat * desert soil * desert varnish * desertification * food desert * preach in the desertEtymology 3
From (etyl)Verb
(en verb)- You can't just drive off and desert me here, in the middle of nowhere.
- Anyone found deserting will be shot.
Derived terms
* deserter * desertion * desert or leave a sinking shipAnagrams
* * English heteronyms ----due
English
Adjective
(en adjective)- With dirges due , in sad array, / Slow through the churchway path we saw him borne.
citation, passage=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.}}
- This effect is due to the attraction of the sun.
citation, passage=Mother
Synonyms
* (owed or owing) needed, owing, to be made, required * (appropriate) * expected, forecast * (having reached the scheduled or natural time) expectedDerived terms
* driving without due care and attention * due date * due to * in due time * taxes due * with all due respectAdverb
(en adverb)- The river runs due north for about a mile.
Noun
(en noun)- Give him his due — he is a good actor.
citation
- He will give the devil his due .
- Yearly little dues of wheat, and wine, and oil.
- The key of this infernal pit by due I keep.
