obligation

Noun

obligation (countable and uncountable, plural obligations)

1. The act of binding oneself by a social, legal, or moral tie to someone.

   Synonyms:

   commitment

2. A social, legal, or moral requirement, duty, contract, or promise that compels someone to follow or avoid a particular course of action.
   • I feel I'm under obligation to attend my sister's wedding, even though we have a very frosty relationship.
   • The only responsibility and power of the Vice President under the Constitution is to faithfully count the electoral college votes as they have been cast.
     The Constitution does not empower the Vice President to alter in any way the votes that have been cast, either by rejecting certain of them or...2021 January 5, J. Michael Luttig, Twitter, archived from the original on 05 Jan 2021; republished as Washington Post, 5 January 2021

   Synonyms:

   duty

3. A course of action imposed by society, law, or conscience by which someone is bound or restricted.
4. A legal agreement stipulating a specified action or forbearance by a party to the agreement; the document containing such agreement.
   • The Pupil after his Pupillarity, had granted a Diſcharge to one of the Co-tutors, which did extinguiſh the whole Debt of that Co-tutor, and conſequently of all the reſt, they being all correi debendi, lyable by one individual Obligation, which cannot be Diſcharged as to one, and ſtand as to all the...December 19 1668, James Dalrymple, “Mr.Alexander Seaton contra Menzies”, in The Deciſions of the Lords of Council & Seſſion, Edinburgh, published 1683, page 575
5. (countable) Reason for being obliged to, that is, grateful for, something.
   • I am indebted to several friends for notes, observations, and correspondence on this subject, more especially to one, referred to as "Z.," and to another as "Q.," who have obtained a considerable number of reliable histories for me, and have also supplied many valuable notes [...]. Other...1927, Havelock Ellis, chapter 2, in Studies in the Psychology of Sex