overwordExplorer
FRENCH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

devoir.

duty

6 characters2 syllables approx.Français language

Meaning & usage

noun/də.vwaʁ//dvwaʁ/

  1. duty

    masculine
    manquer à son devoir, manquer à tous ses devoirs
    Il est de mon devoir de protéger le roi.

  2. exercise, assignment (set for homework)

    masculine
Where this word comes from

Inherited from Middle French debvoir, from Old French deveir, from Latin dēbēre (to owe; ought, must).

verb/də.vwaʁ//dvwaʁ/

  1. must, to have to, should (as a requirement)

    Les auteurs d'un dictionnaire doivent déterminer au départ les catégories de mots à retenir, en fonction des limites imposées par l'éditeur et du public visé.

  2. must, to have to, should (as a requirement) must

    present

  3. must, to have to, should (as a requirement) should

    conditional

  4. must, to do or have with certainty

  5. to owe (money, obligation and etc)

    transitive

  6. (even) if it is necessary (+ infinitive)

    intransitive · literary

  7. to have a duty to

    reflexive
Where this word comes from

Inherited from Middle French debvoir, from Old French deveir, from Latin dēbēre (to owe; ought, must).

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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.