• IPA: /dəˈvwɑː/

devoir (plural devoirs)

1. (archaic, often in plural) Duty, business; something that one must do.
   • 1603, Michel de Montaigne, John Florio, transl., The Essayes, […], book I, printed at London: By Val[entine] Simmes for Edward Blount […], OCLC 946730821 ↗, page 149 ↗:

     […] he imprint not so much in his schollers mind […] where Marcellus died, as because he was unworthy of his devoire he died there […].

   • 1983, Lawrence Durrell, Sebastian, or Ruling Passions (The Avignon Quintet; 4), London; Boston, Mass.: Faber & Faber, ISBN 978-0-571-13111-2; republished in The Avignon Quintet, London: Faber & Faber, 2004, ISBN 978-0-571-22555-2, page 1057:

     That is the little bit of essential information which enables us to complete our devoir – without it we are just ordinary people, dispossessed, taken unawares: the original sin!