The word for today is…

beholden (adj) – Owing something, such as gratitude, to another; indebted.

Source : The Free Dictionary

Etymology : Have you ever found yourself under obligation to someone else for a gift or favour? It’s a common experience and, not surprisingly, many of the words describing this condition have been part of the English language for centuries. Beholden is recorded in the Middle-English Arthurian poem Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. Indebted, which entered English through Anglo-French, is older and still very much in use. Those who don’t mind sounding like English speakers of yore have another synonym of beholden to choose from: a now-archaic sense of bounden. That word is today more often used with the meaning “made obligatory” or “binding,” as in “our bounden duty.”

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Peter is a fourth-generation New Zealander, with his mother's and father's folks having arrived in New Zealand in the 1870s. He lives in Lower Hutt with his wife, some cats and assorted computers. His...