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say it: DOO-tee
duty is a noun meaning "the social force that binds you to the courses of action demanded by that force". It carries 3 recorded senses.
the social force that binds you to the courses of action demanded by that force
“we must instill a sense of duty in our children”
“every right implies a responsibility; every opportunity, an obligation; every possession, a duty”
work that you are obliged to perform for moral or legal reasons
“the duties of the job”
a government tax on imports or exports
“they signed a treaty to lower duties on trade between their countries”
Forms marked · are formed by the regular rule rather than recorded in the source data. English keeps a few hundred irregulars and the rest follow the pattern, so the rule is right far more often than not — but it is a rule, and the mark says so.
Definitions, synonyms and semantic relations for duty come from Princeton University’s WordNet. The pronunciation comes from the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary. Commonness is measured against a corpus of everyday English. Full sources and licences.