From Middle English dewe, dew, due, from Old French deu, past participle of devoir ("to owe"), from Latin dēbēre, present active infinitive of dēbeō ("I owe"), from dē- + habeō.

• (British) enPR: dyo͞o, jo͞o, IPA: /djuː/, /dʒuː/
• (America) enPR: do͞o, IPA: /du/
• (Australia, New Zealand) enPR: jo͞o, IPA: /dʒʉː/
• (Canada) IPA: /dju/, /dɪu̯/, ;, /du/

due

1. Owed or owing.

   Synonyms: needed, owing, to be made, required

   He is due four weeks of back pay.

   The amount due is just three quid.

   The due bills total nearly seven thousand dollars.

   He can wait for the amount due him.

2. Appropriate.

   With all due respect, you're wrong about that.

   • 1750 June 12 (date written; published 1751), T[homas] Gray, “Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard”, in Designs by Mr. R[ichard] Bentley, for Six Poems by Mr. T. Gray, London: […] R[obert] Dodsley, […], published 1753, →OCLC ↗:

     With dirges due, in sad array, / Slow through the churchway path we saw him borne.

3. Scheduled; expected.

   Synonyms: expected, forecast

   Rain is due this afternoon.

   The train is due in five minutes.

   When is your baby due?

4. Having reached the expected, scheduled, or natural time.

   Synonyms: expected

   The baby is just about due.

   • 1963, Margery Allingham, chapter 1, in The China Governess: A Mystery, London: Chatto & Windus, →OCLC ↗:

     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.

5. Owing; ascribable, as to a cause.

   The dangerously low water table is due to rapidly growing pumping.

   • 1852, James David Forbes, “Dissertation on the Progress of Mathematical and Physical Science”, in Encyclopædia Britannica:

     the milky aspect be due to a confusion of small stars

   • 1921, Ben Travers, chapter 2, in A Cuckoo in the Nest, Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, Page & Company, published 1925, →OCLC ↗:

     Mother […] considered that the exclusiveness of Peter's circle was due not to its distinction, but to the fact that it was an inner Babylon of prodigality and whoredom, from which every Kensingtonian held aloof, except on the conventional tip-and-run excursions in pursuit of shopping, tea and theatres.

6. On a direct bearing, especially for the four points of the compass

   The town is 5 miles due North of the bridge.

• French: dû
• German: fällig
• Portuguese: devido
• Russian: подлежа́щий оплата

• Portuguese: devido
• Russian: подобать

• German: fällig
• Russian: ожида́емый

• Spanish: salir de cuentas (verb)

• French: plein

due

1. (used with compass directions) Directly; exactly.

   The river runs due north for about a mile.

• Portuguese: exatamente
• Russian: пря́мо

due (plural dues)

1. Deserved acknowledgment.

   Give him his due – he is a good actor.

2. (in the plural) A membership fee.
3. 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.
   • c. 1597 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The First Part of Henry the Fourth, […]”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC ↗, [Act I, scene ii]:

     He will give the devil his due.

   • 1842, Alfred Tennyson, “The Lotos-Eaters”, in Poems. […], volume I, London: Edward Moxon, […], →OCLC ↗, stanza 8, page 184 ↗:

     Chanted from an ill-used race of men that cleave the soil, / Sow the seed, and reap the harvest with enduring toil, / Storing yearly little dues of wheat, and wine and oil; […]

   • 1850, [Alfred, Lord Tennyson], In Memoriam, London: Edward Moxon, […], →OCLC ↗, Canto XXXVII, page 57 ↗:

     For I am but an earthly Muse,
     ⁠And owning but a little art
     ⁠To lull with song an aching heart,
     And render human love his dues; […]

4. Right; just title or claim.
   • 1667, John Milton, “Book II”, in Paradise Lost. […], London: […] [Samuel Simmons], and are to be sold by Peter Parker […]; [a]nd by Robert Boulter […]; [a]nd Matthias Walker, […], →OCLC ↗; republished as Paradise Lost in Ten Books: […], London: Basil Montagu Pickering […], 1873, →OCLC ↗:

     The key of this infernal pit by due […] I keep.

• Russian: должный
• Spanish: mérito

• Portuguese: quota, cota

1. Surname.