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INDEBTED
| Pronunciation (US): |  | (GB): | |
I. (adjective)
Sense 1
Meaning:
Owing gratitude or recognition to another for help or favors etc
Classified under:
Similar:
obligated (caused by law or conscience to follow a certain course)
Derivation:
indebtedness (a personal relation in which one is indebted for a service or favor)
Sense 2
Meaning:
Under a legal obligation to someone
Classified under:
Similar:
obligated (caused by law or conscience to follow a certain course)
Derivation:
indebtedness (an obligation to pay money to another party)
Context examples:
Fanny's last feeling in the visit was disappointment: for the shawl which Edmund was quietly taking from the servant to bring and put round her shoulders was seized by Mr. Crawford's quicker hand, and she was obliged to be indebted to his more prominent attention.
(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)
The day will close almost before you are aware it has begun; and you are indebted to no one for helping you to get rid of one vacant moment: you have had to seek no one's company, conversation, sympathy, forbearance; you have lived, in short, as an independent being ought to do.
(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)
Little Mr. Chillip the Doctor, to whose good offices I was indebted in the very first chapter of this history, sat reading a newspaper in the shadow of an opposite corner.
(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)
Had he done his duty in that respect, Lydia need not have been indebted to her uncle for whatever of honour or credit could now be purchased for her.
(Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen)
“I am immensely indebted to you. Pray tell me in what way I can reward you. This ring—”
(The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
I am much indebted to you for directing my attention to this case, Mr. Soames.
(The Return of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
"I am much indebted to you for your gracious permission," said the angry Professor; for never was a man so intolerant of every form of authority.
(The Lost World, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
Too much indebted to the event for his acquittal.
(Emma, by Jane Austen)
Admiral Crawford was a man of vicious conduct, who chose, instead of retaining his niece, to bring his mistress under his own roof; and to this Mrs. Grant was indebted for her sister's proposal of coming to her, a measure quite as welcome on one side as it could be expedient on the other; for Mrs. Grant, having by this time run through the usual resources of ladies residing in the country without a family of children—having more than filled her favourite sitting-room with pretty furniture, and made a choice collection of plants and poultry—was very much in want of some variety at home.
(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)
This was a poser, and I could only answer lamely enough that, much as I was indebted to my uncle, I had known Jim first, and that I was surely old enough to choose my own friends.
(Rodney Stone, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
