duteous
Americanadjective
adjective
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of duteous
Explanation
To be duteous is to be conscious of your duties and diligent in performing them. A duteous employee gets to work on time, meets every deadline, and never gossips about the boss. A duty is a responsibility or obligation, so to be duteous is to be mindful of one’s duties. A doctor who makes a home visit is duteous. A waiter who is quick and accurate is duteous. Being duteous suggests diligence and respect for the task at hand. In some professions — like being a butler — the whole job is based on being duteous, but you can be duteous in any task you take seriously.
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Exception 3.—Final y is sometimes changed into e: as, duty + ous = duteous; beauty + ous = beauteous.
From New Word-Analysis by William Swinton
All promise is poor dilatory man, And that through every stage: when young, indeed, In full content we, sometimes, nobly rest, Unanxious for ourselves; and only wish, As duteous sons, our fathers were more wise.
From Young's Night Thoughts With Life, Critical Dissertation and Explanatory Notes by Edward Young
"Mustn't rush things," he'd told himself, as if those three days had been three years' duteous service of a knight of old.
From The Disturbing Charm by Berta Ruck
He spoke: high Jove assenting bow'd the head, And floating clouds of nectar'd fragrance shed: Then, lowly bending to th' Eternal Sire, Each in his duteous rank, the gods retire.
From The Lusiad or The Discovery of India, an Epic Poem by Luís de Camões
There forests, lawns, and haunts of beasts abound, There youth is temperate, and laborious found; There altars and the righteous gods are fear'd, And aged sires by duteous sons rever'd.
From Museum of Antiquity A Description of Ancient Life by T. L. (Thomas Louis) Haines
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
