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compulsion. In DICTIOUS you will not only get to know all the dictionary meanings for the word
compulsion, but we will also tell you about its etymology, its characteristics and you will know how to say
compulsion in singular and plural. Everything you need to know about the word
compulsion you have here. The definition of the word
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English
Etymology
Borrowed from Middle French compulsion, from Late Latin compulsiō, from Latin compellere (“to compel, coerce”); see compel.
Pronunciation
Noun
compulsion (countable and uncountable, plural compulsions)
- An irrational need or irresistible urge to perform some action, often despite negative consequences.
During the basketball game, I had a sudden compulsion to have a smoke.
2013 June 7, David Simpson, “Fantasy of navigation”, in The Guardian Weekly, volume 188, number 26, page 36:It is tempting to speculate about the incentives or compulsions that might explain why anyone would take to the skies in basket : perhaps out of a desire to escape the gravity of this world or to get a preview of the next; .
- The use of authority, influence, or other power to force (compel) a person or persons to act.
1941 May, “Jubilee of the City Tube”, in Railway Magazine, page 223:From the opening of the City & South London Railway independent electric locomotives were used under compulsion of the Board of Trade.
2016 January 17, “Wealthy cabals run America”, in Al Jazeera America, retrieved 18 January 2016:But Treaty translator and Ottawa leader Andrew Blackbird described the Treaty as made “not with the free will of the Indians, but by compulsion.”
- The lawful use of violence (i.e. by the administration).
Derived terms
Translations
use of power to force a person to act
Further reading
- “compulsion”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.
- William Dwight Whitney, Benjamin E Smith, editors (1911), “compulsion”, in The Century Dictionary , New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., →OCLC.
- “compulsion”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.
French
Etymology
From Latin compulsiōnem.
Pronunciation
Noun
compulsion f (plural compulsions)
- compulsion
Further reading