Word.ws English Dictionary

gave the devil his due

gave the devil his due is the simple past of give the devil his due.

Meaning of give the devil his due

Verb

give the devil his due (third-person singular simple present gives the devil his due, present participle giving the devil his due, simple past gave the devil his due, past participle given the devil his due)

  1. (idiomatic, informal) To acknowledge the positive qualities of a person who is unpleasant or disliked.
    • […]for he was never yet a breaker of
      proverbs: he will give the devil his due.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...

Questions about gave the devil his due

What is gave the devil his due the simple past of?
Gave the devil his due is the simple past of give the devil his due.

Words near gave the devil his due in the dictionary

  1. gave something up as a bad job
  2. gave suck
  3. gave the ax
  4. gave the axe
  5. gave the bird
  6. gave the devil his due
  7. gave the dirts
  8. gave the elbow
  9. gave the finger
  10. gave the floor
  11. gave the game away

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: gave the devil his due (page history and authors); give the devil his due (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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