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Is it the same as "need"? What meaning does "duly" add to "require"?

EDIT: Adding example I found online from the 1957 Penal Code of the Empire of Ethiopia:

Art. 326. Capitulation.

A commanding officer who:

(a) in battle or in the face of the enemy lays down his arms, despatch a bearer with a flag of truce, hauls down his flag, or surrenders with his men without having done everything that the exigencies of military duly require of him; or [...]

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While duly may be pleonastic in combination with require, it is probably not so here.

Military service may require various actions of you, as your superior or the rules make demands on you. In most circumstances, you must obey your superiors and the rules must be followed. However, there may be exceptional circumstances, in which a drunk superior officer orders you to shoot an entire village full of innocent people. Or a situation may arise that the rules could not have foreseen. In that case, it could be said that military service unduly requires you to carry out a ruinous action or a war crime. You are not obliged to carry out such an action and will not incur punishment if you don't.

Even so, it could be said that the overlap with require is large enough to leave out duly. If your superior orders you to murder innocent people, that is not something military service requires of you, but rather the command of a nutcase. Similarly, the rules will usually be formulated broadly enough to allow you to break lesser rules in case of an emergency at your own discretion if you thereby uphold a greater principle. The word duly was probably thrown in as a general safe-guard without much thought.

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    a good explanation, but I don't think "duly" is actually intended in this example... see my answer.
    – LarsH
    Commented Jun 9, 2011 at 3:45
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    @LarsH: Hmm, you may have a point. I decided to ignore military without the or service because it might have been an Ethiopian error, as you mentioned; but I never thought of duty, which would admittedly fit well. I have given you an up-vote. I still think duly is a possibility, but... if my life depended on it, I'd pick your answer.
    – Cerberus - Reinstate Monica
    Commented Jun 9, 2011 at 13:21
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I'm pretty sure that in the given example, it's a typo for "duty". I say this because if "duly" were really intended, "military" would have to be a noun. And that doesn't sound right in the phrase "the exigencies of military". Usually when "military" is a noun, it is preceded by "the". But

without having done everything that the exigencies of military duty require of him

makes perfect sense and sounds more natural. Moreover, "military duty" and "military duties" appear several times in the document, whereas "duly require" does not.

(On the other hand, the writers of this Ethiopian document may not be native English speakers, or their dialect may be a little different from mine.)

Aside from this example, I think the meaning of "duly require" is straightforward: it means to properly or fittingly require something. E.g. when I google (bing) for this phrase, the first hits contain

car financing companies duly require a credit report...

Meaning, car financing companies require a credit report and that is proper/fitting/expected that they require one. This is opposed to a store unduly requiring your telephone number or social security number in order to complete a transaction... such a requirement does not seem justified.

So to answer your question, "duly require" is not quite the same as "require" or "need" (although someone could use it that way, i.e. with "duly" being redundant): it adds the sense that the requirement is proper or expected.

The sense of a possible redundancy I think comes from the fact that both "duly" and "require" convey a sense of obligation or "ought". But the "ought" applies to two different parties. If A duly requires something from B, the "duly" speaks of what is proper for A (namely, to require something), while the "require" puts an obligation on B, to provide something.

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Duly is defined:

in a due manner; properly; fittingly.

So, "duly required" is something that is required in a fitting manner, as related to the context of the sentence.

So, in the army, something that is duly required will be required in a way fitting to the army.

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I usually go by the following rule.

If you are just required to do something outside a time frame, go with simply require

If you are required to do something within a particular time frame, you use duly require

"You are required to obtain a new driving license in your new state

You are duly required to obtain a new driving license in your new state within 3 months."

"You are required to sign the transfer deed.

You are duly required to sign the transfer deed before 1st Jan 2012."

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  • -1: it has absolutely nothing to do with timeframe: see other answers.
    – user1579
    Commented Jun 9, 2011 at 15:33
  • Duly by its very definition can also pertain to accomplishment within a time frame. merriam-webster.com/dictionary/duly
    – Sri Atluru
    Commented Jun 9, 2011 at 15:53
  • I'm afraid you are severely misunderstanding that definition.
    – user1579
    Commented Jun 9, 2011 at 16:16
  • Well. Please explain where I am going wrong with my interpretation of the phrase - "in a due time".
    – Sri Atluru
    Commented Jun 9, 2011 at 16:21
  • largely by trying to tie "due" to a particular timeframe. It is far more about appropriateness than dates. "In due time the soloist came back for an encore" means that she went back on stage at an appropriate moment rather than (say) within thirty seconds.
    – user1579
    Commented Jun 9, 2011 at 16:41

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