debt of honor

• debt of honour

debt of honor (plural debts of honor)

1. (set phrase) An obligation, especially a gambling debt based on a verbal promise, which is not legally enforceable but which is considered to be secured by the debtor's moral integrity.
   • 1826, Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, chapter 1, in The Last Man:

     [T]his whole sum, and its amount doubled, was lost at the gaming-table. In his desire to repair his first losses, my father risked double stakes, and thus incurred a debt of honour he was wholly unable to pay.

   • 1844, Ralph Waldo Emerson, chapter 4, in Essays: Second Series:

     "I owe this money to Sheridan; it is a debt of honor; if an accident should happen to me, he has nothing to show."

   • c. 1890, Horatio Alger, The Tin Box, ch. 30:

     They had commenced playing cards for amusement—at least, that was Congreve's pretext—but it had led to playing for a stake. . . .

     "This is a debt of honor. Gentlemen always pay their debts of honor. It takes precedence of all other claims."

   • 1912, William Somerset Maugham, Lady Frederick, Act I:

     Lady Frederick: Is it a gambling debt?

     Gerald: Yes.

     Lady Frederick [ironically]: What they call a debt of honour?

     Gerald: I must pay it the day after to-morrow without fail.

   • 2001 June 24, Anastasia Toufexis, "Brazil Victory for the "Great Conciliator"," Time (retrieved 27 Aug 2014):

     [H]e is opposed to the suggestion that Brazil declare a moratorium on its international debts repayments. Said he: "We must pay what we owe. It is a debt of honor for the nation."

   • 2004 Nov. 27, "Obituaries: Bill Glassco, champion of new writers in the Canadian theatre," Independent (UK) (retrieved 27 Aug 2014):

     Brought up in Quebec, Glassco latterly was able to repay to French-speaking Canada a debt of honour by creating in 1999 in Montreal a company of young actors drawn from both the English- and French-speaking communities.

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