Word.ws English Dictionary

doing one's duty

doing one's duty is the present participle and gerund of do one's duty.

Meaning of do one's duty

Verb

do one's duty (third-person singular simple present does one's duty, present participle doing one's duty, simple past did one's duty, past participle done one's duty)

  1. (euphemistic) Synonym of use the toilet: to urinate or defecate.
    • And when I was being toilet-trained as a very little boy, she'd always ask, "Have you done your duty?" That was the word for it.1996, Derrick Humphreys, John A. Munro, The making of a grey panther: the Derrick Humphreys story, page 8
    Synonyms:
    use the toilet
  2. Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see do, duty.
    Synonyms:
    use the toilet

Questions about doing one's duty

What is doing one's duty the present participle and gerund of?
Doing one's duty is the present participle and gerund of do one's duty.

Words near doing one's duty in the dictionary

  1. doing off
  2. doing one's bit
  3. doing one's business
  4. doing one's damnedest
  5. doing one's darnedest
  6. doing one's duty
  7. doing one's ease
  8. doing one's easement
  9. doing one's homework
  10. doing one's job
  11. doing one's own thing

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: doing one's duty (page history and authors); do one's duty (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.

Last updated:

Cite this entry: “doing one's duty.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/doing_one%27s_duty. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.