duty-bound


adjective
  1. morally obliged as a matter of duty

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

How to use duty-bound in a sentence

  • Succor could not arrive, he argued, and they were in duty bound to save the surviving civilians and the women and children.

    The Red Year | Louis Tracy
  • Then, as in duty bound, I knelt and kissed the hand of the king in token of homage, and he smiled at me contented.

    A Prince of Cornwall | Charles W. Whistler
  • The world takes it for granted that the wife or paramour of a man of genius is in duty bound to sacrifice herself for him.

  • Sethos tendered the wine-cup as in duty bound, then stood with hands crossed before him, and looks bent lowly on the earth.

    Sarchedon | G. J. (George John) Whyte-Melville
  • Here he is supposed to have arranged it all, a belief which I vigorously combated as I believed myself in duty bound to do.

Other Idioms and Phrases with duty-bound

duty-bound

Obliged, as in You're duty bound to help your little brother. [c. 1900]

The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary Copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.