From Longman Dictionary of Contemporary Englishowe it to somebody to do somethingowe it to somebody to do somethingIMPORTANTto feel you should do something for someone, because they have helped you or given you support You owe it to your supporters not to give up now. → owe
Examples from the Corpus
owe it to somebody to do something• We owe it to clarity to disentangle the varieties of suffering possible in a given situation.• We owe it to gastronomy to keep them alive.• We owe it to our children to clean up the environment.• We owe it to ourselves to consider alternative futures, based on what we know and what we can project from that.• It was a lame excuse, and I bluntly told him that he owed it to posterity to relate his story.• He owed it to Sue to avenge Arabella.• I owe it to Victoria to lend some retrospective weight to our parting.• You owe it to yourself to extract yourself from your present situation and reassess your life.• For health insurance reasons you owe it to yourself to take care of your one and only body - your working machine. 