Word.ws English Dictionary

gives the devil his due

gives the devil his due is the third-person singular simple present indicative 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 gives the devil his due

What is gives the devil his due the third-person singular simple present indicative of?
Gives the devil his due is the third-person singular simple present indicative of give the devil his due.

Words near gives the devil his due in the dictionary

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

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: gives 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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