due

Just; proper; regular; lawful; sufficient; reasonable, as in the phrases "due care," "due process of law," "due notice." Owing; payable; justly owed. That which one contracts to pay or perform to another; that which law or justice requires to be paid or done. Owed, or owing, as distinguished from payable. A debt is often said to be due from a person where he is the party owing it, or primarily bound to pay, whether the time for payment has or has not arrived. The same thing is true of the phrase "due and owing." Payable. A bill or note is commonly said to be due when the time for payment of it has arrived. The word "due" always imports a fixed and settled obligation or liability, but with reference to the time for its payment there is considerable ambiguity in the use of the term, the precise signification being determined in each case from the context. It may mean that the debt or claim in question is now (presently or immediately) matured and enforceable, or that it matured at some time in the past and yet remains unsatisfied, or that it is fixed and certain but the day appointed for its payment has not yet arrived. But commonly, and in the absence of any qualifying expressions, the word "due" is restricted to the first of these meanings, the second being expressed by the term "overdue," and the third by the word "payable." Due and proper care. That degree of care which is required of one for prevention of the accident.

See due care