Performing, or ready to perform, the duties required by one who has the right to claim submission, obedience, or deference; submissive to natural or legal superiors; obedient, as to parents or superiors; as, a dutiful son or daughter; a dutiful ward or servant; a dutiful subject.
Controlled by, proceeding from, a sense of duty; respectful; deferential; as, dutiful affection.
The name of Jesus, like a secret charm, awakened similar emotions in the hearts of all the converts, and called immediately into action every feeling of moral loveliness, and every desire of dutiful obedience, which constitute Christian purity. John Strachan
President Reagan always gave the credit to the American people and American ideals. He treated his job as a valuable temporary loan from the American people, a loan that should be respected and returned with dutiful appreciation. William L. Jenkins
I was a normal, rather dutiful child. I didn't even rebel as a teenager. Emily Watson
It becomes us, therefore, to be contented, and dutiful subjects. Jonathan Mayhew
By the fulfillment of my legal and moral duty I think I have earned punishment just as little as the tens of thousands of dutiful German officials who have now been imprisoned only because they carried out their duties. Wilhelm Frick
