Owes vs Due - What's the difference?
owes | due |
(owe)
To be under an obligation to give something back to someone or to perform some action for someone.
*1854 , Dickens, Hard Times , Chapter 7:
*:He inherited a fair fortune from his uncle, but owed it all before he came into it, and spent it twice over immediately afterwards.
To have debt, to be in debt.
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
As a verb owes
is (owe).As an adjective due is
owed or owing.As an adverb due is
(used with compass directions) directly; exactly.As a noun due is
deserved acknowledgment.owes
English
Verb
(head)Anagrams
* ----owe
English
Verb
(ow)Usage notes
* The original past tense form was ought, which during Middle English began to be used with indefinite signification and has become a distinct verb. The original past participle has become the adjective own.Anagrams
*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.