obligation

Definition

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

Etymology

From Middle English obligacioun, from Old French obligacion, from Latin obligatio, obligationem, from obligatum (past participle of obligare), from ob- (“to”) + ligare (“to bind”), from Proto-Indo-European *leyǵ- (“to bind”).

Example Sentences

• "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 otherwise. How the Vice President discharges this constitutional obligation is not a question of his loyalty to the President any more than it would be a test of a President’s loyalty to his Vice President whether the President assented to the impeachment and prosecution of his Vice President for the commission of high crimes while in office. No President and no Vice President would—or should—consider either event as a test of political loyalty of one to the other. And if either did, he would have to accept that political loyalty must yield to constitutional obligation. Neither the President nor the Vice President has any higher loyalty than to the Constitution."
• "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 reſt."

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