COERCE

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

IPA (US):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does coerce mean? 

• COERCE (verb)
  The verb COERCE has 1 sense:

1. to cause to do through pressure or necessity, by physical, moral or intellectual means

  Familiarity information: COERCE used as a verb is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• COERCE (verb)

Present simple: I / you / we / they coerce    ... he / she / it coerces   
Past simple: coerced   
Past participle: coerced   
-ing form: coercing   

Sense 1

Meaning:

To cause to do through pressure or necessity, by physical, moral or intellectual means

Classified under:

Verbs of political and social activities and events

Synonyms:

coerce; force; hale; pressure; squeeze

Context example:

He squeezed her for information

Hypernyms (to "coerce" is one way to...):

compel; obligate; oblige (force somebody to do something)

Cause:

act; move (perform an action, or work out or perform (an action))

Troponyms (each of the following is one way to "coerce"):

turn up the heat; turn up the pressure (apply great or increased pressure)

drive (to compel or force or urge relentlessly or exert coercive pressure on, or motivate strongly)

bludgeon (overcome or coerce as if by using a heavy club)

steamroll; steamroller (bring to a specified state by overwhelming force or pressure)

squeeze for (squeeze someone for money, information, etc.)

dragoon; railroad; sandbag (compel by coercion, threats, or crude means)

terrorise; terrorize (coerce by violence or with threats)

bring oneself (cause to undertake a certain action, usually used in the negative)

Sentence frames:

Somebody ----s somebody to INFINITIVE
Somebody ----s somebody into V-ing something

Sentence example:

They coerce him to write the letter

Derivation:

coercion (using force to cause something to occur)

coercion (the act of compelling by force of authority)

coercive (serving or intended to coerce)

 Context examples 

Finding that their secret was out, and that their prisoner was not to be coerced, the two villains with the girl had fled away at a few hours’ notice from the furnished house which they had hired, having first, as they thought, taken vengeance both upon the man who had defied and the one who had betrayed them.

(The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

As I walked by his side homeward, I read well in his iron silence all he felt towards me: the disappointment of an austere and despotic nature, which has met resistance where it expected submission—the disapprobation of a cool, inflexible judgment, which has detected in another feelings and views in which it has no power to sympathise: in short, as a man, he would have wished to coerce me into obedience: it was only as a sincere Christian he bore so patiently with my perversity, and allowed so long a space for reflection and repentance.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)