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The quality of being cogent; power of compelling conviction; conclusiveness; force. An antecedent argument of extreme cogency. J. H. Newman.

Compelling, in a physical sense; powerful. [Obs.] The cogent force of nature. Prior.

To compel to perform military service; to seize for military purposes; -- orig. used of the Boers.

Operating with force; compelling; forcing; constraininig; resulting from, or enforced by, compulsion. [R.] To recover of us, by strong hand And terms compulsatory, those foresaid lands. Shak.

The act of compelling, or the state of being compelled; the act of driving or urging by force or by physical or moral constraint; subjection to force. If reasons were as plentiful as blackberries, I would give no man a reason upon compulsion. Shak. With what complusion and laborious flight We sunk thus low. Milton.…

Having power to compel; exercising or applying compulsion. Religion is . . . inconsistent with all compulsive motives. Sharp.

To compel; to force; to necessiate; to oblige. The love of Christ constraineth us. 2. Cor. v. 14. I was constrained to appeal unto CActs xxviii. 19.

The act of constraining, or the state of being constrained; that which compels to, or restrains from, action; compulsion; restraint; necessity. Long imprisonment and hard constraint. Spenser. Not by constraint, but bDryden.

The act of convincing of error, or of compelling the admission of a truth; confutation. For all his tedious talk is but vain boast, Or subtle shifts conviction to evade. Milton.

in a convincing manner; in a manner to compel assent.

ns, who buy up the whole or the available part of any stock or species of property, which compels those who need such stock or property to buy of them at their own price; as, a corner in a railway stock. [Broker's Cant] Corner stone, the stone which lies at the corner of two walls, and unites them; the principal stone;…

s, the troops fought under cover of the batteries; the woods afforded a good cover. Being compelled to lodge in the field . . . whilst his army was under cover, they might be forced to retire. Clarendon.

Calling for notice; compelling attention; notorious; heinous; as, a crying evil. Too much fondness for meditative retirement is not the crying sin of our modern Christianity. I. Taylor.

I felt by anticipation the horrors of the Highland seers, whom their gift of deuteroscopy compels to witness things unmeet for mortal eye. Sir W. Scott.

has wrongfully seized and appropriated; to make restitution of; to surrender; as, he was compelled to disgorge his ill-gotten gains.

To press heavily upon; to bear down upon with violence; hence, to constrain or compel; to bind; to distress, torment, or afflict. [Obs.] "Distrained with chains." Chaucer.

To compel by pain or suffering. Men who can neither be distressed nor won into a sacrifice of duty. A. Hamilton.

A writ commanding the sheriff to distrain a person by his goods or chattels, to compel a compliance with something required of him.

To compel submission by violent measures; to harass; to persecute. The colonies may be influenced to anything, but they can be dragooned to nothing. Price. Lewis the Fourteenth is justly censured for trying to dragoon his subjects to heaven. Macaulay.

ge onward by force in a direction away from one, or along before one; to push forward; to compel to move on; to communicate motion to; as, to drive cattle; to drive a nail; smoke drives persons from a room. A storm came on and drove them into Pylos. Jowett (Thucyd. ). Shield pressed on shield, and man drove man along.…