debt of honor
debt of honor noun: an obligation, especially a gambling debt based on a verbal promise, which is not legally enforceable but which is considered to be secured by the debtor's moral integrity.
Noun
debt of honor (plural debts of honor)
- An obligation, especially a gambling debt based on a verbal promise, which is not legally enforceable but which is considered to be secured by the debtor's moral integrity.
- [T]his whole sum, and its amount doubled, was lost at the gaming-table. In his desire to repair his first losses, my father risked double stakes, and thus incurred a debt of honour he was wholly unable to pay.1826, [Mary Shelley], chapter I, in The Last Man. […], volume (please specify |volume=I to III), London: Henry Colburn, […], →OCLC
- "I owe this money to Sheridan; it is a debt of honor; if an accident should happen to me, he has nothing to show."1844, Ralph Waldo Emerson, chapter 4, in Essays: Second Series
Forms of debt of honor
| plural | debts of honor |
|---|---|
| alternative form | debt of honour |
Questions about debt of honor
- What does debt of honor mean?
- Debt of honor means an obligation, especially a gambling debt based on a verbal promise, which is not legally enforceable but which is considered to be secured by the debtor's moral integrity.
- What part of speech is debt of honor?
- Debt of honor is a noun.
- What is the plural of debt of honor?
- The plural of debt of honor is debts of honor.
Words near debt of honor in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: debt of honor (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
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