Word.ws English Dictionary

given the devil his due

given the devil his due is the past participle 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 given the devil his due

What is given the devil his due the past participle of?
Given the devil his due is the past participle of give the devil his due.

Words near given the devil his due in the dictionary

  1. given suck
  2. given that
  3. given the ax
  4. given the axe
  5. given the bird
  6. given the devil his due
  7. given the dirts
  8. given the elbow
  9. given the finger
  10. given the floor
  11. given the game away

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: given 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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