Online dictionaryOnline dictionary
Synonyms, antonyms, pronunciation

  Home
English Dictionary      examples: 'day', 'get rid of', 'New York Bay'




Compulsion   /kəmpˈəlʃən/   Listen
Compulsion

noun
1.
An urge to do or say something that might be better left undone or unsaid.  Synonym: irresistible impulse.
2.
An irrational motive for performing trivial or repetitive actions, even against your will.  Synonym: obsession.
3.
Using force to cause something to occur.  Synonym: coercion.  "They didn't have to use coercion"






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








Advanced search
     Find words:
Starting with
Ending with
Containing
Matching a pattern  

Synonyms
Antonyms
Quotes
Words linked to  

only single words



Share |
Add this dictionary
to your browser search bar





"Compulsion" Quotes from Famous Books



... them as blank negative forces, hateful black devils, whose existence might make life difficult but could not confuse the ideal of life. No one sought to understand these enemies of his, nor even to conciliate them, unless under compulsion or out of insidious policy, to convert them against their will; he merely pelted them with blind refutations and clumsy blows. Every one sincerely felt that the right was entirely on his side, a proof that such ...
— Winds Of Doctrine - Studies in Contemporary Opinion • George Santayana

... advances one step from the place on which he stands, expires that moment. Fools! Do ye think I would have delivered myself up, and desired that guards might beset these doors, had I feared their swords, or intended to escape from your power? No; I am content to be your prisoner, but not through compulsion! I am content to be your prisoner; and it was with that intent that I came hither. No mortal should have the glory of seizing Abellino. If justice required him to be delivered up, it was necessary that he should be delivered up by himself! Or do ye take Abellino for ...
— The Bravo of Venice - A Romance • M. G. Lewis

... enterprises which are supplied with provisions or are situated in districts where there is plenty. ("The opinion that, in the absence of these preliminary conditions, it will be possible to draw workmen from the villages by measures of compulsion or mobilization is profoundly mistaken.") (4) that there should be a census of labor and that the Trades Unions should be invited to protect the interests of the conscripted. Finally, this Conference approved the idea of using the already existing military organization for carrying ...
— The Crisis in Russia - 1920 • Arthur Ransome

... disposed to be communicative, though I tried him with the "Twa Briggs," and, like all Scotchmen, he was a reader of "Burrns." He professed to feel no interest in the cause for which he was fighting, and was in the army, I judged, only from compulsion. There was a wild-haired, unsoaped boy, with pretty, foolish features enough, who looked as if he might be about seventeen, as he said he was. I give my questions and ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)

... me, that she may see how far I will let her go. I do not permit her to play at this game with me." The difficulty is in teaching women that we are not constituted as they are, and that we are wilfully earnest, while they, who never can be so save under compulsion, carry it on with us, expecting that at a certain crisis a curtain will drop, and we shall take a deep breath, join hands, and exclaim, 'What an exciting play!'—weeping luxuriously. The actualities of life must be branded on their backs—you can't get their ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith


More quotes...



Copyright © 2025 Dictionary One.com