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Due vs Between - What's the difference?

due | between |

As nouns the difference between due and between

is that due is deserved acknowledgment while between is a kind of needle, shorter than a sharp, with a small rounded eye, used for making fine stitches on heavy fabrics.

As an adjective due

is owed or owing.

As an adverb due

is (used with compass directions) directly; exactly.

As a preposition between is

in the position or interval that separates (two things), or intermediate in quantity or degree (see the usage notes below).

due

English

Adjective

(en adjective)
  • Owed or owing.
  • Appropriate.
  • * Gray
  • With dirges due , in sad array, / Slow through the churchway path we saw him borne.
  • Scheduled; expected.
  • Having reached the expected, scheduled, or natural time.
  • * {{quote-book, year=1963, author=(Margery Allingham), title=(The China Governess)
  • , chapter=1 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.}}
  • Owing; ascribable, as to a cause.
  • * J. D. Forbes
  • This effect is due to the attraction of the sun.
  • * {{quote-book, year=1922, author=(Ben Travers), title=(A Cuckoo in the Nest)
  • , chapter=2 citation , passage=Mother

    Synonyms

    * (owed or owing) needed, owing, to be made, required * (appropriate) * expected, forecast * (having reached the scheduled or natural time) expected

    Derived terms

    * driving without due care and attention * due date * due to * in due time * taxes due * with all due respect

    Adverb

    (en adverb)
  • (used with compass directions) Directly; exactly.
  • The river runs due north for about a mile.

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • Deserved acknowledgment.
  • Give him his due — he is a good actor.
  • * {{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 citation
  • , 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
  • He will give the devil his due .
  • * Tennyson
  • Yearly little dues of wheat, and wine, and oil.
  • Right; just title or claim.
  • * Milton
  • The key of this infernal pit by due I keep.

    Derived terms

    * give someone his due * give the devil his due

    Statistics

    *

    Anagrams

    * ----

    between

    English

    Alternative forms

    * betweene (archaic) * betwene (archaic) * (abbreviation)

    Preposition

    (English prepositions)
  • In the position or interval that separates (two things), or intermediate in quantity or degree. (See the Usage notes below.)
  • :
  • :
  • *
  • *:Thus, when he drew up instructions in lawyer language, he expressed the important words by an initial, a medial, or a final consonant, and made scratches for all the words between ; his clerks, however, understood him very well.
  • *{{quote-magazine, year=2013, month=July-August, author=(Henry Petroski)
  • , title= Geothermal Energy , volume=101, issue=4, magazine=(American Scientist) , passage=Energy has seldom been found where we need it when we want it. Ancient nomads, wishing to ward off the evening chill and enjoy a meal around a campfire, had to collect wood and then spend time and effort coaxing the heat of friction out from between sticks to kindle a flame.}}
  • Done together or reciprocally.
  • :
  • *{{quote-book, year=1935, author= George Goodchild
  • , title=Death on the Centre Court, chapter=1 , passage=She mixed furniture with the same fatal profligacy as she mixed drinks, and this outrageous contact between things which were intended by Nature to be kept poles apart gave her an inexpressible thrill.}}
  • Shared in confidence.
  • :
  • In transit from (one to the other, or connecting places).
  • :
  • Combined (by effort or ownership).
  • :
  • :
  • One of (representing a choice).
  • :
  • :
  • Usage notes

    * Some groups of non-native speakers confuse between'' and ''among''. It is sometimes said that ''between'' usually applies to two things, while ''among'' applies to more than two things. This is not correct; according to the Oxford English Dictionary (quoted at http://eebweb.arizona.edu/faculty/chesson/between_and_among.htm) "In all senses, ''between'' has been, from its earliest appearance, extended to more than two. In OE. and ME. it was so extended in sense 1, in which ''among'' is now considered better. It is still the only word available to express the relation of a thing to many surrounding things severally and individually, ''among expressing a relation to them collectively and vaguely: we should not say ‘the space lying among the three points,’ or ‘a treaty among three powers,’ or ‘the choice lies among the three candidates in the select list,’ or ‘to insert a needle among the closed petals of a flower".

    Synonyms

    * atween (archaic) * atwix

    Derived terms

    * (between)

    See also

    * betwixt * among

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • A kind of needle, shorter than a sharp, with a small rounded eye, used for making fine stitches on heavy fabrics.
  • Statistics

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