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Compel   /kəmpˈɛl/   Listen
Compel

verb
(past & past part. compelled; pres. part. compelling)
1.
Force somebody to do something.  Synonyms: obligate, oblige.
2.
Necessitate or exact.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Compel" Quotes from Famous Books



... "You compel me to repeat, de Courcelles, that your man, Boucher, has thrown away his own life. It's not well to deal a foul blow at a consummate swordsman. But I suppose it's hard for a murderer to change his instincts. Ah, what a stroke! ...
— The Hunters of the Hills • Joseph Altsheler

... take it from you by brute force,' I should, old as I am, I feel convinced, reply to him, 'Come on.' But if, on the other hand, he were to say to me, 'Very well, then I shall take proceedings against you in the Court of Queen's Bench to compel you to give it up to me,' I should at once take it from my pocket, press it into his hand, and beg of him to say no more about the matter. And I should consider I was getting ...
— The Second Thoughts of An Idle Fellow • Jerome K. Jerome

... the morals of men, any more than I criticize their facial contour or their physical build. "As many men, so many minds,"—and morals. Wrong, for practical purposes, is that which a man can not cajole or compel his conscience to approve. ...
— The Plum Tree • David Graham Phillips

... alternative, such as the thorough bifurcation into two sides would give, they would still hold their ground, and bear all their present fruits. His classical brethren, however, do not in general share this conviction. They seem to think that if they can no longer compel every University graduate to pass beneath the double yoke of Rome and Greece, these two illustrious nationalities will be in danger of passing out of the popular mind altogether. For my own part, I do not share their fears, nor do I think that, even on the voluntary footing, the study ...
— Practical Essays • Alexander Bain

... I defy you, Mr. Fabian Rockharrt. You may denounce me to your father He may turn me out of doors without a penny, and 'without a character,' as the servants say, but he cannot divorce me, because I have been faithful to him ever since our marriage. I could compel him by law to support me, even though he might not let me share his home. He would be obliged by law to give me alimony in proportion to his income, and, oh! what a magnificent revenue that would be for me—with freedom ...
— For Woman's Love • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth

... merchandise imported upon which the order operated must be consumed by Mexican citizens, the contributions exacted were in effect the seizure of the public revenues of Mexico and the application of them to our own use. In directing this measure the object was to compel the enemy to contribute as far as practicable toward the expenses of ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Polk - Section 3 (of 3) of Volume 4: James Knox Polk • Compiled by James D. Richardson

... government, who have frequently found it necessary to extend their assistance to the whole of the unfortunate debtor's family, to preserve them from actual destruction; and who could not, by any authority which was vested in them, compel the hard-hearted and inhuman creditor to accede to the only proposal which it was in the ability of the prisoner to offer. The introduction of the bankrupt laws could not fail to afford an effectual relief to persons reduced to this unfortunate condition, ...
— The Present Picture of New South Wales (1811) • David Dickinson Mann

... resources at its disposal. Its public services may be various, but probably there is no place in which it may be of more value than side by side with the public school; and I venture to think that this is the case largely because education to be complete must select as well as train, must compel the fit to step forward and the unfit to retire, and must do this, not only at the outset of a course of training but continuously thruout its duration. We speak of a student being "put thru the mill," and we must ...
— A Librarian's Open Shelf • Arthur E. Bostwick

... barefooted, to put her ear to the keyhole and listen if he was sleeping quietly. Julien found her there one night as he was coming in late from dining at the Fourvilles, and after that she was locked into her room every evening to compel her to stay ...
— The works of Guy de Maupassant, Vol. 5 (of 8) - Une Vie and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant 1850-1893

... said Waldemar Fitzurse, "will do less than due honor to the victor if you compel him to wait till we tell your Highness that which we cannot know; at least I can form no guess—unless he be one of the good lances who accompanied King Richard to Palestine, and who are now straggling homeward from ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 6 • Charles H. Sylvester

... case of a strike of the second class which runs through a subgroup in which producers are still without union, coercion adds greatly to what the men may gain. It may fix and enforce a rate of pay which all employers must give, and circumstances will compel them to charge it to the public in whole or in part. The marginal producers who have no net profits must charge the whole advance to the public or go out of business, and the result may be that some of them may go out. The advance in the rate of pay conceded by others ...
— Essentials of Economic Theory - As Applied to Modern Problems of Industry and Public Policy • John Bates Clark

... of British sovereignty. Unfortunately, our policy oscillated painfully between irritating interference and excessive timidity. First of all attempts were made to stop the trek by force, then to compel the trekkers to return by cutting off their supplies and ammunition, then to throttle their development of the new lands north of the Orange and Vaal Rivers by calling into being fictitious native States on a huge scale in the midst of and around them, then ...
— The Framework of Home Rule • Erskine Childers

... Howe (Excessive Venery, Masturbation, and Continence, London and New York, 1883, p. 62) writes of masturbation: "In savage lands it is of rare occurrence. Savages live in a state of Nature. No moral obligations exist which compel them to abstain from a natural gratification of their passions. There is no social law which prevents them from following the dictates of their lower nature. Hence, they have no reason for adopting onanism ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 1 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis

... (Acts 17:11). Though they had some infallible teachers, yet they took not their words or doctrine upon trust; and there may be more ground to question expositors on this text, in regard their principles necessitate them to judge that the sense; for if it be in their judgments a duty to compel all to come in, and to receive all, and their children, they must needs judge by that text, they were all of the church, and in fellowship, before their scrupling meats and days, because that is an act of grown persons at years of discretion; and therefore the receiving is judged by ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... compel me to this at last, I fear, Miss Rawlins; I fear she will; and then we are both undone: for I cannot live without her; she knows it too well: and she has not a friend who will look upon her: this also she knows. ...
— Clarissa, Volume 5 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson

... conditions of life at sea, our mastery of the forces of Nature, and so on, seem to show that we have perfect freedom of will, and adapt everything to our desires. I believe just the contrary. The forces of Nature compel us to approach them in their own way, otherwise we are shipwrecked. It is in the conditions of Nature that this ship should reach port in eight days, otherwise we should get nowhere. We do it because it ...
— Where the Blue Begins • Christopher Morley

... right views as to the sacrament of the altar." Violent disputes arose. As the Roman captain had to interfere when Paul stood before the factions of the Jewish Sanhedrin, so the Emperor Sigismund had now to exercise his authority and command and compel order in the grave and reverend holy Council. Hus could not with a good conscience condemn all of Wiclif's writings until they were proven against Holy Scriptures, and such was his admiration of the stainless life of ...
— John Hus - A brief story of the life of a martyr • William Dallmann

... please. I do realise, perfectly, that we are not free to make any more dangerous experiments. But we are at least free to live and work independently of one another. Of course I know that you can compel me to remain with you,"—her colour deepened on the words.—"But I know also that you have too much chivalry, too much pride, to force yourself ...
— The Great Amulet • Maud Diver

... it drove her out of doors. It seemed to her that she went before it with quick uncertain feet and a fluttering heart, aimless and tormented as a leaf driven by a vague light wind. Sometimes it sent her up the field towards the wood; sometimes it would compel her to go a little way towards the Farm; and then it was as if it took her by the shoulders and turned her back again towards ...
— The Flaw in the Crystal • May Sinclair

... fortunate that the idea of my remaining all the next day at Chaillot was suggested by herself: I should thus have ample time for deliberation. My presence would prevent any fears for at least the next day; and if nothing should occur to compel me to disclose the discovery I had already made, I was determined on the following day to move my establishment into town, and fix myself in a quarter where I should have nothing to apprehend from the interference of ...
— Manon Lescaut • Abbe Prevost

... hate every commandment of his faith; but if he conforms, he is a faithful son. On the other hand, he may be a man of unblemished character, and he may even intend to be obedient to caste; but if, some night, a few enemies were to thrust into his mouth and compel him to swallow a piece of beef, no power could save him from the dreadful punishment that would follow. A man may write a tract in condemnation and ridicule of all the gods of the Hindu pantheon and still remain an acceptable Hindu; but if, in the agony of a burning ...
— India, Its Life and Thought • John P. Jones

... in which these evidences compel us to recognize the influence of the medium as a primordial factor, we need but conceive them as interpreted without it. Suppose, for instance, we say that the structure of the epidermis is wholly determined by the natural selection of favourable ...
— Essays: Scientific, Political, & Speculative, Vol. I • Herbert Spencer

... first, because of the character of those involved, second, because of the character of what they revealed. It is difficult for one not predisposed toward the occult and even strongly prejudiced against it to deny in alleged spiritistic phenomena a challenging residuum which may in the end compel far-reaching modifications in the conclusions both of science and psychology. By one set of tests this residuum is unexpectedly small. One of the canons of the S.P.R. is to reject the work of any medium once convicted or strongly suspected of fraud. There is a vast literature in this region ...
— Modern Religious Cults and Movements • Gaius Glenn Atkins

... worth, or make in the contract such stipulations as will afterward ruin the settler. They profit by the settlers' failures, for each settler adds something to the improvement of the land before the conditions of the land-purchase contract which he is unable to meet compel him to leave the land. The land shark sells the land to a new settler for a still higher price, capitalizing the improvements made by the former settler. With the new settler the process is repeated, and so it goes, like an endless chain. ...
— A Stake in the Land • Peter Alexander Speek

... and found and traced to Mr Crawley's hands, Miss Anne Prettyman said nothing further to Grace Crawley about Major Grantly. It was not that she thought that Mr Crawley was guilty, but she knew enough of the world to be aware that suspicion of such guilt might compel such a man as Major Grantly to change his mind. "If he had only popped," Anne said to her sister, "it would have been all right. He would never have gone back from his word." "My dear," said Annabella, "I wish you would not talk about popping. ...
— The Last Chronicle of Barset • Anthony Trollope

... Exchanges.' And the Bank of England, from 1860 onward, have acted upon that principle. Before that time they used to raise their rate almost always by steps of 1/2 per cent, and there was nothing in the general state of mercantile opinion to compel them to change their policy. The change was, on the contrary, most unpopular. On this occasion, and, as far as I know, on this occasion alone, the Bank of England made an excellent alteration of their policy, which was not exacted by contemporary opinion, ...
— Lombard Street: A Description of the Money Market • Walter Bagehot

... there was no compulsion whatever. You wanted to know my secret, and for the sake of knowing it you bound yourself. That is not compulsion. I cannot compel you. I could not think of presuming to compel you to marry me now. But I can say to you that I am devotedly attached to you, that to marry you is the aim and object of my life, and if you refuse, I will tell you that you are doing a great ...
— Saracinesca • F. Marion Crawford

... Greece was forced to put back by contrary winds, and returned to Velia on the seventeenth of August, where he had a long conference with Brutus, who soon after left Italy for his province of Macedonia, which Caesar had assigned him before his death, though Antonius now wished to compel him to exchange it for Crete. After this conference Cicero returned to Rome, where he was received with unexampled joy, immense multitudes thronging out to meet him, and to escort him into the city. He arrived in Rome on the last day of August. The next day the senate met, to which he ...
— The Orations of Marcus Tullius Cicero, Volume 4 • Cicero

... the offspring of self-fertilization in the struggle for existence." This has been the motto of the orchid family for ages. No group of plants has taken more elaborate precautions against self-pollination or developed more elaborate and ingenious mechanism to compel insects to transfer ...
— Wild Flowers Worth Knowing • Neltje Blanchan et al

... followed him through many a campaign to victory, while Octavius had no popularity with his troops, most of whom were reluctant to fight against their old comrades in arms. And finally, Antony had a preponderating fleet with which he could command the sea and compel his opponent to fight on the defensive in Italian territory. All these advantages he allowed to ...
— A History of Sea Power • William Oliver Stevens and Allan Westcott

... the means sometimes to make some false knaves say that they heard such-and-such a Christian man speak opprobrious words against Mahomet. And upon that point, falsely testified, they will take occasion to compel him to forsake the faith of Christ and turn to the profession of their shameful superstitious sect, or else will they put him to death ...
— Dialogue of Comfort Against Tribulation - With Modifications To Obsolete Language By Monica Stevens • Thomas More

... of ignorant, brutal, sanguinary officers of the king. Their summary trial, without any forms of justice, was an awful tragedy. They were thrown into dungeons; their property confiscated; they were exposed to the most direful tortures which human ingenuity could devise, to extort confession and to compel them to criminate friends. By scores they were daily consigned to the scaffold. Thirty executioners, with their assistants, found constant employment in beheading the condemned. In the middle of the town, the scaffold ...
— The Empire of Austria; Its Rise and Present Power • John S. C. Abbott

... of a town or fortress by sea and land; shutting up all the avenues, so that it can receive no relief.—To blockade a port is to prevent any communication therewith by sea, and cut off supplies, in order to compel a surrender when the provisions and ammunition are exhausted.—To raise a blockade is to discontinue it.—Blockade is violated by egress as well as by ingress. Warning on the spot is sufficient notice of a blockade de facto. Declaration is useless without actual investment. ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth

... from him the impression of great physical strength. The face was finely chiseled, virile, aristocratic, a face to compel men's admiration, to turn women's heads. But Martin divined the flaw in that fine mask. The full, curved lips were shaded by a short, blond mustache, but that hirsute covering did not conceal the cruel quirk at the lips' corners. The face was ruddy, even in that light, and unlined. The eyes, probably ...
— Fire Mountain - A Thrilling Sea Story • Norman Springer

... in the case of a community, be it the city or be it the state, an illustration of a sanction which is sufficient to compel observance of a rule without any question of the application of force. This kind of sanction may be of a highly compelling quality, and it often extends so far as to make the individual prefer the good of the community to his own. The ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park

... So much ugliness on one side and so much beauty on another ought to compel reflection. Temper your ardour, my boy. Do not become too enthusiastic about Dea. Do you seriously consider that you are made for her? Just think of your deformity and her perfection! See the distance between her and yourself. She has ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo

... "why" that any one can ask, and to answer it. Fortunately for philosophers, people generally become fatigued after they have heard the answer to two or three "whys" and are glad enough to let the matter drop. If, however, any one will insist on pushing question behind question long enough, he will compel us to admit that we come to the end of our knowledge which is based ultimately upon ignorance. To get knowledge out of ignorance seems almost as hopeless a task as to get something out of any number of nothings, but this in practice is what we have to do and the less fuss ...
— The Note-Books of Samuel Butler • Samuel Butler

... will ye compel me thereto?' she said. 'Are there thralls in the Dale? Or will ye make me an outlaw? Who shall heed it? Or I shall betake me to Shadowy Vale and become one of their ...
— The Roots of the Mountains • William Morris

... regretting to state that this infringed no statute, deprecated all violence, and while it extolled the forbearance of the people, yet declared that an education which educated backward, and an institution which sought to elevate an inferior race by degrading a superior, would compel the people to make laws they would rather not enact. The Black-and-Tannery's effort for a union revival meeting lay at the door of "our church," said Garnet smilingly to Sister Proudfit, "as dead as Ananias." The ...
— John March, Southerner • George W. Cable

... of the sacrament of matrimony (so he called it, being a Roman) consists not only in the mutual consent of the parties to take one another as man and wife, but in the formal and legal obligation that there is in the contract to compel the man and woman at all times to own and acknowledge each other; obliging the man to abstain from all other women, to engage in no other contract while these subsist; and on all occasions, as ability allows, to provide honestly for them and their children; and to oblige ...
— The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe (1808) • Daniel Defoe

... amazing, and showed De Gex to be a man of outstanding genius. The mystery-man of Europe took good care to inform himself of any person who watched his movements, or sought to inquire into his business. It certainly was a master-stroke to pretend fear of assassination, and compel the police to act as his personal guard. By that means he had learnt that Hambledon and myself were in Madrid on purpose to discover what we could, hence he had hired the assassin Despujol to set that ...
— The Stretton Street Affair • William Le Queux

... insists upon knowing what this or that institution accomplishes for the common good. The deep and growing interest in social science, the crying needs that it lays bare, together with socialistic dreams of human welfare, compel Christian workers to pay more heed to the life that now is, since individualistic views of salvation in the world to come do not fully ...
— The Minister and the Boy • Allan Hoben

... which, several had deserted to the Bandanese, and ten had become Mahometans, who could not be recovered. Neither has the Dutch garrison any controul over the natives of Banda, any farther than that they compel all junks to ride at anchor under the guns of their castle, and command the seas there by the number of their ships: But on the land, they dare not even give a bad word to any of the Bandanese. The Globe arrived again at Patane on the 23d of September from Siam, bringing me ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. VIII. • Robert Kerr

... have or not, Mr. Glover should be penalized for his indifference," suggested Marie. Doctor Lanning came in. "Compel him to show us something we haven't seen around the lake," suggested the doctor. "That he cannot do; then we have only to ...
— The Daughter of a Magnate • Frank H. Spearman

... Scott, having answered a few preliminary interrogatories, turned slowly, facing Mrs. LaGrange, who was watching him with an intensity of manner and expression as though she would compel him ...
— That Mainwaring Affair • Maynard Barbour

... is great difficulty about finding an executioner who becomes obnoxious to the Thar, vendetta or blood-revenge. For salting the criminal's head, however, the soldiers seize upon the nearest Jew and compel him to clean out the brain and to prepare it for what is often a long journey. Hence, according to some, the local name of the Ghetto, ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton

... of the labors which it is our wish to describe. He would attribute to the author of this history intentions which he could not entertain, and religious opinions which his respect for human reason would compel him to disavow. The apostles of the gospel continually appeal to the reason of their hearers, and Christ himself argues the increasing exercise of the eye of the soul, as he calls conscience, in judging of the truth which he announces—Matt. vi. 23. For a good conscience is always better disposed ...
— History of Rationalism Embracing a Survey of the Present State of Protestant Theology • John F. Hurst

... the most daring. 'Bide your time' is a good motto, and I recommend it to you. You must feel that, however we may be at variance in our opinions, Edward Armitage, my hand and my authority never can be used against one to whom I am so indebted; and feeling this, you compel me in the presence of others to use a harshness and coldness towards you, contrary—wholly contrary—to what, you may believe me when I say it, I really feel for one who so ...
— The Children of the New Forest • Captain Marryat

... is written (Luke 14:23): "Go out into the highways and hedges; and compel them to come in." Now men enter into the house of God, i.e. into Holy Church, by faith. Therefore some ought to ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas

... of prices, affecting all the productions of the country and every branch of industry, proceeding from causes explained on a former occasion, the revenue has considerably diminished, the effect of which has been to compel Congress either to abandon these great measures of defense or to resort to loans or internal taxes to supply the deficiency. On the presumption that this depression and the deficiency in the revenue arising ...
— United States Presidents' Inaugural Speeches - From Washington to George W. Bush • Various

... ready in hand for the discharge of Ehrenthal's claims to that amount. As for his other demands, unsupported as they were by documentary evidence, they were to be referred to proper legal authorities. The attorney refused to accept the payment offered. Anton accordingly took the necessary steps to compel Ehrenthal at once to accept it, and to forego all claims that he had hitherto ...
— Debit and Credit - Translated from the German of Gustav Freytag • Gustav Freytag

... is necessary preferably to embrace the system of indirect contribution, in which class, to a certain degree, the monopoly of all those articles may be considered as included which are not rigorously of the first necessity, and only compel the individual to contribute when his own will induce him to become ...
— The Former Philippines thru Foreign Eyes • Fedor Jagor; Tomas de Comyn; Chas. Wilkes; Rudolf Virchow.

... be as poor as church mice. You'll see. I say that the Southern States ought to stay in the Union; but if they are resolved that they won't do it, the government at Washington has no shadow of a right to compel them. That's me, and that's why I tell you that ...
— True To His Colors • Harry Castlemon

... existence compel the publisher to be a tradesman on the same material basis as any other. Ideally, a poem, like any other beautiful thing, is beyond price; but, practically, its value depends on the number of individuals who can be prevailed upon to purchase ...
— Prose Fancies • Richard Le Gallienne

... force his power is gone. But the British government is never and nowhere entirely or laid upon force. It does make an honest attempt to secure the goodwill of the governed. But it does not hesitate to adopt unscrupulous means to compel the consent of the governed. It has not gone beyond the 'Honesty is the best policy' idea. It therefore bribes you into consenting its will by awarding titles, medals and ribbons, by giving you employment, by its superior financial ability to open for its employees avenues ...
— Freedom's Battle - Being a Comprehensive Collection of Writings and Speeches on the Present Situation • Mahatma Gandhi

... chlorophyll, the decomposition of carbonic acid, as well as the formation of starch, etc., in the grains of the chlorophyll, are induced by the red, green, and orange rays." The blue, violet, and ultra violet rays, the same authority goes onto explain, influence "the rapidity of growth, compel the so-called zooespores to move in certain directions, and alter the positions of leaves, etc." In confirmation of this, we have Sach's experiments in 1872, which show that light, transmitted through the yellow solution of potassium chromate, enables green ...
— Scientific American, Volume XXXVI., No. 8, February 24, 1877 • Various

... autumn, and the periodical rains had been long delayed, so that the minister had been able to do much for the houses he had bought, called the Pottery. There had been but just rain enough to reveal the advantage of the wall he had built to compel the water to keep the wider street. Thoroughly dry and healthy it was impossible to make them, at least in the time; but it is one thing to have the water all about the place you stand on, and another ...
— Paul Faber, Surgeon • George MacDonald

... upon Zenobia alone. The Romans, now grown stronger than they had been for some time after the defeat of Valerian, disputed the right of the widow of Odenathus to assume the reins of government, and sent out generals to compel her to submit to the dictum of the Senate. One of these she met, and obliged to retreat with the loss of his army, his mortification at defeat being increased by the fact that he had been ...
— Woman: Man's Equal • Thomas Webster

... was according to the law; none did compel: for so the king had appointed to all the officers of his house, that they should do according to every ...
— Short Stories Old and New • Selected and Edited by C. Alphonso Smith

... England and America. The framers of it, in particular, flattered themselves that the confusion which would arise upon the disuse of writings, and the insecurity of property which would result from using any other than that required by law, would compel the colonies, however reluctant, to use the stamped paper, and consequently to pay the taxes imposed thereon. They therefore boasted that it was a law which would execute itself. By the term of the Stamp Act, it was not to take effect till November 1st—a period of more than seven months ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, v. 13 • Various

... of some of the better-class children used to come out with a comical assumption of superiority and dignity and compel their children to leave off playing with Frankie and some other poorly dressed children who used to play in that street. These females were usually overdressed and wore a lot of jewellery. Most of them fancied they were ladies, and if they had only ...
— The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists • Robert Tressell

... terror are commendable means, because they break the spirit even if they have no value from a military point of view. Moreover, what offends common morality is conformed to transcendent morality. The mission of the Germans at war is to punish. They work Divine vengeance. They compel their enemies to expiate the crime of resisting them. After they have taken a city, if the enemy has the insolence to take it back, it is just that they shall sack that city if possible, killing its inhabitants and ...
— New York Times, Current History, Vol 1, Issue 1 - From the Beginning to March, 1915 With Index • Various

... his government, and thereby forfeit all his influence, the Duke no sooner saw the period of the municipal election approach than, pretexting the dangerous illness of his brother, he took his leave of the Court and hastened back to St. Jean-d'Angely in order to compel the retirement of the obnoxious functionary. As he had anticipated, on the day of the canvass a letter was received from the ministers, ordaining the re-election of the mayor without modification or explanation of any kind; an affront which ...
— The Life of Marie de Medicis, Vol. 2 (of 3) • Julia Pardoe

... intolerable. There was indeed an easy way of escape. He had but to stay away from the lady. But, though he despised himself for it, he desired infinitely to see her again. She compelled him, as he had never believed anything outside his own will could compel. After all, it was no such matter, for he would soon be gone with his father to France. He might well hope never ...
— The Highwayman • H.C. Bailey

... resistance of the Colonies, he alone was immovable on the question of force. England was so dear to us that the Colonies could only be absolutely disunited by violence from England, and only one man could compel the resort to violence. Parliament wavered, Lord North wavered, all the ministers wavered, but the king had the insanity of one idea; he was immovable, he insisted on the impossible, so the army was sent, America was instantly ...
— Ralph Waldo Emerson • Oliver Wendell Holmes

... and it was agreed that the answer should be general and not a subject of contention. One of the members asked to be excused from going with the House to the President, but Gallatin showed that, as there was no power to compel attendance, no formal excuse was necessary. When the motion was put as to whether they should go in a body as usual to present their answer, Mr. Gallatin voted in the negative. He nevertheless accompanied the members, who were received pleasantly by President ...
— Albert Gallatin - American Statesmen Series, Vol. XIII • John Austin Stevens

... had been ordered to follow and "strike" that band of Apaches, and compel them to return to their "reservation," and he had no other purpose in ...
— Two Arrows - A Story of Red and White • William O. Stoddard

... belonged to this cuttle-fish group, soon attained a very considerable size; but a shell known as the orthoceras (I wish my subject didn't compel me to use such very long words, but I am not personally answerable, thank heaven, for the vagaries of modern scientific nomenclature) grew to a bigger size than that of any other fossil mollusk, sometimes measuring as much ...
— Falling in Love - With Other Essays on More Exact Branches of Science • Grant Allen

... enemy sought battle, the question would soon be decided, but if he wished to avoid it the difficulty would be to find him and to compel him to accept it. For this purpose the best plan was that adopted in 1803 by Lord St. Vincent, which consisted in placing at the outset, in front of every one of the enemy's military ports, a British squadron superior to that which the ...
— The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke, Vol. 2 • Stephen Gwynn

... now easily do, as his cavalry are all mounted on Egyptian horses, capable of supporting thirst and making long journeys, and he may think that by striking at your camping-places, cutting down your palm-trees, and filling up your wells, he may compel you to promise to cease from all ...
— At Aboukir and Acre - A Story of Napoleon's Invasion of Egypt • George Alfred Henty

... herself! "I wonder when she was last vaccinated!" he said. "I was last year; I daresay I'm all right! But if she were to die, or lose her complexion, I should kill myself! I know I should!" Would honor compel him to marry her if she were horribly pock-marked? Those dens ought to be rooted out! Philanthropy was gone mad! It was strict repression that was wanted! To sympathize with people like that was only ...
— Weighed and Wanting • George MacDonald

... sir, I would compel you to take it; but as it is, I can only recommend the continual application of cold bandages to your head. I will call in this evening," said the doctor, kindly, ...
— May Brooke • Anna H. Dorsey

... sense a question between you and your late husband," said Horace. (Was there not in him also a certain hesitation at that word, and did not the same feeling as in her compel him to its use?) "Nor is it a question between you and me. The obviously simple issue is what propriety demands as to the manner in which the widow of Lord Hurdly is provided for. It belongs to ...
— A Manifest Destiny • Julia Magruder

... harm.] If you will pass my proposition by a good majority—I would like a two-thirds vote—I will regard that as the town's consent, and that is all I ask. Rarities are always helped by any device which will rouse curiosity and compel remark. Now if I may have your permission to stamp upon the faces of each of these ostensible coins the names of ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... company was no longer pleasant, and rising, he bade them a formal good-evening, and hurriedly retired. That little word no had saved him. The scheme was, to win from him his forty dollars, and then involve him in "debts of honor," as they are falsely called, which would compel him to draw upon his father for more money, or abstract it from his employer, a system which had been pursued by Boyd, and which was discovered only a week subsequent, when the young man was discharged in disgrace. It ...
— No and Other Stories Compiled by Uncle Humphrey • Various

... preserve property in slaves. Our army commanders thought it prudent not to agitate this question, and contented themselves with keeping within the limits of the statutes and the general orders of the War Department, which forbade military interference to return fugitives to the masters or to compel their obedience. The matter was left to work itself out, as it ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V2 • Jacob Dolson Cox

... in doing so he enlists contempt for his nation, without aiding to tear down that superciliousness of the barbarian which is the greatest enemy of the world at large. Better were it he approached that monarch on equal terms—to, it might be, compel him to reconcile his feelings to the force of manifest destiny. Smooth will stand the odds that Commodore Perry gets the better of the Dutchman, comes the independent over the Emperor, and makes a contract for ...
— The Adventures of My Cousin Smooth • Timothy Templeton

... cruel, madam. I submit. I will bide my time until that thrice happy day when you will have learnt the lesson I would teach, when Love, tyrannous Love, shall compel your allegiance as ...
— Prisoners of Hope - A Tale of Colonial Virginia • Mary Johnston

... pagan, when thine arm laid low The brother of Angelica. That knight Am I; — thy word was plighted then to throw After my other arms his helmet bright. If Fortune now compel thee to forego The prize, and do my will in thy despite, Grieve not at this, but rather grieve that thou Art found a perjured ...
— Orlando Furioso • Lodovico Ariosto

... of which was very naturally doubted. The following year, when I was again in Jauja, the Indian paid me another visit. He then informed me that he had been for several months confined in a dark dungeon and half-starved, because the sub-prefect wanted to compel him to reveal the situation of a mine which he knew of, but that he would not disclose the secret, and adhered firmly to the statement he had made of having found the ore. After a little further conversation, he became more communicative than I had any reason to expect, though he was fully convinced ...
— Travels in Peru, on the Coast, in the Sierra, Across the Cordilleras and the Andes, into the Primeval Forests • J. J. von Tschudi

... in religion; the indifference is not in the masses, but in the churches. You will never catch many fish if you stand upon the shore of cold respectability and wait for them to come; launch out into the deep and you will find them. Go for them—that is Christ's method. Compel them to come in, for remember Christ's ideal was, as Bishop Lightfoot so nobly put it, "the universal compulsion of the souls of men." And if your experience is like mine, you will find that there is strangely little compulsion needed to bring men and women to Christ. I stood but lately in ...
— The World's Great Sermons, Volume 10 (of 10) • Various

... induced to emigrate to a Western Territory, if it were set apart for their especial use without any force being used to compel them to go." ...
— American Missionary, Volume 43, No. 3, March, 1889 • Various

... Perhaps so. In any case, the attempt was not imitated; I never saw another installation of the kind. There is one definite conclusion to be drawn from my two discoveries. Despite the oddity of their structure, which is unparalleled among the local flora, the two American importations did not compel the insect to go through an apprenticeship of groping and hesitation. The one which found itself in the presence of those novel growths, and which was perhaps the first of its race to do so, took possession of their lobes and stalks just as it would have done of a familiar site. From the ...
— Bramble-bees and Others • J. Henri Fabre

... sentences she had acquainted Waife with her fearless inflexible resolve to associate her fate henceforth with the life of his lawless son; and, by rendering abortive all his evil projects of plunder, to compel him at last to depend upon her for an existence neither unsafe nor sordid, provided only that it were not dishonest. The moment that she revealed that design, Waife's trust in her was won. His own heart enabled him to comprehend the effect produced upon ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... understand such matters; that she was the one who had committed a great blunder in placing her husband at the service of the marquis. So she had to abandon her son to his own courses, resolving, however that if Eugene succeeded she would compel him to share the spoils with the poor fellow who ...
— The Fortune of the Rougons • Emile Zola

... defeat the real reform. According to its provision legislation could be initiated by the people, but to make it valid as a law the legislature had to approve any bill so passed. The people could advise. They could not compel. ...
— The Vision Spendid • William MacLeod Raine

... merchandise, and never except directly from the mines. When the value of money in a country is permanently lowered (1) [as a medium of exchange] by an influx of it through the balance of trade, the cause, if it is not diminished cost of production, must be one of those causes which compel a new adjustment, more favorable to the country, of the equation of international demand—namely, either an increased demand abroad for her commodities, or a diminished demand on her part for those of foreign countries. Now, an increased foreign demand ...
— Principles Of Political Economy • John Stuart Mill

... completed, Captain M—-, in pursuance of the orders which he had received, weighed his anchor, and proceeded to cruise until the want of provisions and water should compel him to return into port. For many days the look-out men at the mastheads were disappointed in their hopes of reporting a strange sail, the chase or capture of which would relieve the monotony of constant sky and water, until, one Sunday forenoon, as Captain M—- was performing ...
— The King's Own • Captain Frederick Marryat

... reproductions of paintings of Marie Antoinette and other old French court characters, its statuary, costly vases and draperies, a wide marble stairway curves gracefully upstairs. To dwell upon all of the luxurious aspects of these residences would compel an extended series of details. In both of the residences every room ...
— History of the Great American Fortunes, Vol. I - Conditions in Settlement and Colonial Times • Myers Gustavus

... in a meditative tone, for it had occurred to him for a moment that the girl was now in his power; that he could compel her to get into the bow of the canoe, and might steer her to his home at Waruskeek if he chose, whether she would or no. But Cheenbuk's soul was chivalrous. He was far in advance of his kindred and his times. ...
— The Walrus Hunters - A Romance of the Realms of Ice • R.M. Ballantyne

... great deal of hard labor on the part of both Alfred and the owner to compel the cow to swallow the pills. However, a goodly part of the cupful of pills was ...
— Watch Yourself Go By • Al. G. Field

... in Me, and I in Thee; that they also may be one in Us; that the world may believe that Thou hast sent Me." Such unity has a wondrous power to compel the belief of worldly men. "And the glory which Thou gavest Me I have given them; that they may be one, even as We are one; I in them, and Thou in Me, that they may be perfect in one; and that the world may know that ...
— When the Holy Ghost is Come • Col. S. L. Brengle

... hindrances to marriage were much more stringent with the mother's relations than with the father's. Divorce was frequent and easy; the power to exercise it rested with the husband; but the wife could, and often did, run away, and thus compel a divorce. A Malagasy proverb compared marriage to a knot so lightly tied that it could be undone by a touch. Such freedom was due to the great desire for children; every child was welcome in the family, whatever its origin.[178] The children belonged to the husband, and ...
— The Truth About Woman • C. Gasquoine Hartley

... the greater the story. This business of convincing the reader requires more labour than the average writer seems to care about performing. Any reader is willing to be held—for a time. But how many stories compel recollection of plot and characters as indubitably a part of all ...
— O Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1919 • Various

... its own advances, and impose limits upon itself which it shall not pass over, its moderation is mistaken for feebleness and impotence; the vanquished again take up the offensive, and either force the civilized power to retire, or compel it to cross its former boundary. The Pharaohs did not escape this inevitable consequence of conquest: their southern frontier advanced continually higher and higher up the Nile, without ever becoming ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 2 (of 12) • G. Maspero

... and the seniors in the upper form might have occasion to do the same, but the classes in this school were large and practically self-contained, so that they had little to do with those in the upper or junior classes; it was therefore comparatively easy for the leading spirits to persuade or compel the rest to follow their lead, whatever it ...
— That Scholarship Boy • Emma Leslie

... such by rules 4, 5, 6, 7 and 8 of these rules. The judgment of the court may be by two judges; and that the several orders of the court may be carried into full effect, the agent is hereby authorized and empowered to compel the attendance of witnesses at any session of the court, and to enforce, with the aid of the police, if necessary, all orders that may be passed by the court or a majority thereof; but all orders, decrees, or judgments of the court shall be subject to approval or disapproval by the agent, ...
— Sioux Indian Courts • Doane Robinson

... bring out anything of his own on a large scale at all worthy of his genius. He is like a lump of coal rich with gas, which lies expending itself in puffs and {p.282} gleams, unless some shrewd body will clap it into a cast-iron box, and compel the compressed element to do itself justice. His fancy and diction would have long ago placed him above all his contemporaries, had they been under the direction of a sound judgment and a steady will.[117] I don't now expect a great ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Volume V (of 10) • John Gibson Lockhart

... we provide an equal number of people with healthy maintenance for a given time. But, by the way in which we spend it, we entirely direct the labour of those people during that given time. We become their masters or mistresses, and we compel them to produce, within a certain period, a certain article. Now, that article may be a useful and lasting one, or it may be a useless and perishable one—it may be one useful to the whole community, or useful only to ourselves. And our selfishness and folly, or our ...
— A Joy For Ever - (And Its Price in the Market) • John Ruskin

... conversation, a friendly interview, brings about a more certain result. The practice or form will never die out—I can vouch for that; but what, after all, is the form, I ask once more? You can't compel an examining magistrate to be hampered or bound by it everlastingly. His duty or method is, in its way, one of the liberal professions or something very much ...
— The Continental Classics, Volume XVIII., Mystery Tales • Various

... possible to influence nature in various ways. He imitates what he supposes to be the causes of things, judging that the effect will also follow; or he uses such powers as he may have over spirits, to induce or compel them to accomplish his wishes; or he manipulates objects he believes to have a hidden virtue, in a way he believes calculated to bring about the desired result. Magic is thus related both to the cult of spirits and to that of casual objects, both to animism and to ...
— History of Religion - A Sketch of Primitive Religious Beliefs and Practices, and of the Origin and Character of the Great Systems • Allan Menzies

... done, for I have the order in my pocket." Oh! ye ministers of Christ! you have the order lying on your table, and in your desks, at this moment; read it in the Bible:—Go ye into the highways and hedges, and compel them to come in, that my house may be filled. Luke xiv. 23. The duty is ours: have we done it? Have we done it as opportunities have presented themselves? Have we done it as we ought? Yea, more; have we sought for opportunities to instruct souls? ...
— The Gipsies' Advocate - or, Observations on the Origin, Character, Manners, and Habits of - The English Gipsies • James Crabb

... if China is really in earnest for a constitution, the President should set the example himself by treating the Constitutional Compact as sacredly inviolable and compel his subordinates to do the same. Every letter of the compact should be carried out and no attempt should be made to ...
— The Fight For The Republic in China • Bertram Lenox Putnam Weale

... know was evidently an element in woman's original psychical nature, be it original sin, or otherwise; and correspondingly endowed, as is, just as evidently, her physical organization, to gratify this desire, we may conclude that she will compel some of the educational institutions of the age to her service in ...
— The Education of American Girls • Anna Callender Brackett

... more nor less than a "tale of fiction," and promulgated by men who know that it is a positive lie, but they do it in order to mystify the ignorant and to compel them to ...
— Thirty Years In Hell - Or, From Darkness to Light • Bernard Fresenborg

... these days they inquire into their master's character as, formerly, the master inquired into theirs. This mischief is now really at its height, and the law-courts are beginning to take cognizance of it; but in vain, for it cannot be remedied but by a law which shall compel domestic servants, like laborers, to have a pass-book as a guarantee of conduct. Then the evil will vanish as if by magic. If every servant were obliged to show his pass-book, and if masters were required to state in it the cause of his dismissal, this would certainly prove a powerful check ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac

... to the fact that, at the beginning of secession, Greeley doubted the right of the North to compel the seceding states to remain in the Union. Indeed, he counselled peaceful separation rather than war, as did many others, but he was later a staunch ...
— American Men of Mind • Burton E. Stevenson

... observed that, whenever colonies emigrate from their own country and settle among strangers, they are much more apt to lose their native language, than their religious dogmas and superstitious notions. Necessity indeed may compel them to adopt the language of the new country into which they have emigrated, but any compulsive measures to draw them to another religion serve only to strengthen them in their own. The French refugees at the Cape of Good Hope totally lost their language in less than ...
— Travels in China, Containing Descriptions, Observations, and Comparisons, Made and Collected in the Course of a Short Residence at the Imperial Palace of Yuen-Min-Yuen, and on a Subsequent Journey thr • John Barrow

... the kingdom: that they had aimed at subverting the rights and very being of parliament: that, in order to complete their traitorous designs, they had endeavored, as far as in them lay, by force and terror to compel the parliament to join with them; and to that end had actually raised and countenanced tumults against the king and parliament: and that they had traitorously conspired to levy, and actually had ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part E. - From Charles I. to Cromwell • David Hume

... continually interrupting their brief conversation in an attempt to compel the girl to translate it to him, for he feared that they were concocting some plan to thwart him, and to quiet and appease him, she told him that the Englishman was merely bidding her farewell and wishing her good luck. Suddenly she turned to the black. "Will you do ...
— Tarzan the Untamed • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... could stop him—if he would. But that, he felt now, was just what he would not. To beat her down with torrents of love-cries; to have her trembling, cowed, drummed out of her wits by her own heart-beats; to compel, to dominate, to tame, when her young pride and young strength were the things most beautiful in her: never, by the Cross of Christ! That, I suppose, is as near to true love as a man can get, to reverence in a girl that which holds ...
— The Life and Death of Richard Yea-and-Nay • Maurice Hewlett

... its conceptions, the idealistic and factitious nature of such a presupposition is too evident to allow reason for a moment to persuade itself into a belief of the objective existence of a mere creation of its own thought. But there are other considerations which compel reason to seek out some resting place in the regress from the conditioned to the unconditioned, which is not given as an actual existence from the mere conception of it, although it alone can give completeness to the series of conditions. ...
— The Critique of Pure Reason • Immanuel Kant

... No. 20 represents the ground. The outline of the bear at No. 21 represents the Makwa/ Man/id[-o], or Bear Spirit, one of the sacred Mid[-e]/ man/id[-o]s, to which the candidate must pray and make offerings of tobacco, that he may compel the malevolent spirits to draw away from the entrance to the Mid[-e]/wig[^a]n, which is shown in No. 28. Nos 23 and 24 represent the sacred drum which the candidate must use when chanting the prayers, and two offerings must be made, as indicated ...
— The Mide'wiwin or "Grand Medicine Society" of the Ojibwa • Walter James Hoffman

... of the New Model ordinance was followed by the passing of a self-denying ordinance,(670) the original purport of which was to exclude all members of either House from commands in the army, but was afterwards so far modified as to compel existing officers to resign their appointments, leaving it to parliament to re-appoint them if it would. Essex, Waller and Manchester resigned, but when the time came for Cromwell, the prime mover in the re-organisation of the army, to follow suit, ...
— London and the Kingdom - Volume II • Reginald R. Sharpe

... off to a headless trunk! But set it on a broad lawn, or upon a roadside with generous room, and its noble stature and grace need yield nothing to the most artistic elm of New England. And in the deep woods it sometimes reaches a majesty and a dignity that compel admiration. The great maple at Eagles Mere is the king of the bit of primeval forest yet remaining to that mountain rest spot. It towers high over mature hemlocks and beeches, and seems well able ...
— Getting Acquainted with the Trees • J. Horace McFarland

... himself. Of course, he was not to be bothered, but everybody wanted to talk to him, to ask him how he was, to chatter endlessly at him. Jimmy did not want to talk. His experience in addressing adults was exasperating. That he spoke lucid English instead of babygab did not compel a rational response. Those who heard him speak made over him with the same effusive superiority that they used in applauding a golden-haired tot in high heels and a strapless evening gown sitting on a piano ...
— The Fourth R • George Oliver Smith

... he stopped. Holford took the wheel, and we got away. It was time, for the sun shone after the storm, and Deborah beneath the tiles and the eaves already felt its reviving influence compel her to her interrupted labours of federation. We warned the village policeman at the far end of the street that he might have to suspend traffic again. The proprietor of the giddy-go-round, swings, and cocoanut-shies ...
— A Diversity of Creatures • Rudyard Kipling

... me is, that these troglodytes and muscovites and bandoleers and buccaneers are also trying to crowd in and share the benefit of the law, and compel everybody to revere their Shakespeare and hold him sacred. We can't have that: there's enough of us already. If you go on widening and spreading and inflating the privilege, it will presently come to be conceded that each man's sacred things are the only ones, and the rest of the human race will ...
— Is Shakespeare Dead? - from my Autobiography • Mark Twain

... conducting the invasion of the Caucasus has been different at different times. When the Emperor Nicholas, after the treaty of Adrianople in 1829, revived the old war with Circassia in order to compel by force of arms the acknowledgment of those pretended rights of supremacy which by that treaty had been made over to him by Turkey, he supposed that his Cossacks, aided by a small force of infantry, would ...
— Life of Schamyl - And Narrative of the Circassian War of Independence Against Russia • John Milton Mackie

... oris. The dotted lines represent it when shut; the black lines when open. It opens at G, H, by a screw below with a knob at the end of it. This instrument was used by surgeons to wrench open the mouth in case of lock-jaw. It is used in slave-ships to compel the negroes to take food; because a loss to the owners would follow their persevering attempts to die. K represents the manner of stowing ...
— An Appeal in Favor of that Class of Americans Called Africans • Lydia Maria Child

... and reckon all The vain expense of days that disappear: This cheers by making, ere I die, more clear The frailty of what men delight miscall; But saddens me to think how rarely fall God's grace and mercies in life's latest year. For though Thy promises our faith compel, Yet, Lord, what man shall venture to maintain That pity will condone our long neglect? Still from Thy blood poured forth we know full well How without measure was Thy martyr's pain, How measureless ...
— Sonnets • Michael Angelo Buonarroti & Tommaso Campanella

... have a penny, because she refused him when we were in comfortable circumstances; and he will not renew his suit with the thought in his mind that it would look and feel to her as if any favour he has magnanimously conferred on us, were a mere bribe to compel her to listen to him. So, Annie Millar, this is a pretty kettle of fish, of which you have been chief cook! There is the greater reason for you to make up your mind from this moment to devote yourself wholly to your family, and let nothing—nothing," she protested with ...
— A Houseful of Girls • Sarah Tytler

... prisoners, and not leave until they had seen it eaten, so that it could not be thought that Massna was using this pretext to bring in food for his own men. The Austrian general who may have hoped that a refusal would compel Massna to send back the three thousand soldiers, whom he probably intended to use again, turned down this philanthropic proposal, and Massna then carried out ...
— The Memoirs of General the Baron de Marbot, Translated by - Oliver C. Colt • Baron de Marbot

... him to set her free. It was rooted in her, the fear that he would compel her to come back, that he had the power to make her. She wanted (he seemed to see it) to feel safe from him forever. Leonard had promised to marry her if she were free. She intimated that Leonard was everything that was generous ...
— The Combined Maze • May Sinclair

... Captain would cause her to shrink from inflicting so cruel a revenge even upon a rival. He was far too clever for that. So, without going into details concerning his plans, he led her to believe that, at a prearranged signal from her, he would confront Chiquita personally and compel her to acknowledge the truth before himself and the Captain. Her nature revolted at that which Don Felipe told her, cried out for justice, for the exposure of the impostor; nevertheless, she disliked a scene, and for the ...
— When Dreams Come True • Ritter Brown

... of serviceable, animals, soften and enlarge his life with lowly charities, and discipline him in familiar wisdoms and unboastful fortitudes; while the divine laws of seed-time which cannot be recalled, harvest which cannot be hastened, and winter in which no man can work, compel the impatiences and coveting of his heart into labour too submissive to be anxious, and rest too sweet to be wanton. What thought can enough comprehend the contrast between such life, and that in streets where summer and winter are only alternations of heat ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin

... be angry. You are a brave man; I know that in all your life you never shrank from danger or feared peril. The brave are always generous, always noble; think of what I am going to say. Suppose that, by the exercise of any power, you could really compel me to be your wife, what would it benefit you? I should not love you, I tell you candidly. I should detest you for spoiling my life—I would never see you. What would you gain by forcing me ...
— Dora Thorne • Charlotte M. Braeme

... to concentrate their capital in the bank offices, and meanwhile, as they refused to loan to the stockholders of the banks, discounts in New York fell off $10,000,000. Finally the capital could not be entrusted to the disposal of the banks and it was necessary to compel them to make a deposit of $100,000 for each association, and ...
— A Brief History of Panics • Clement Juglar

... while to bring them home for the use of the whole family,—even to burn in the stables and stalls, as the supply of bears' fat was precarious, and the pine-tree was too precious, so far north, to be split up into torches, while it even fell so short occasionally as to compel the family to burn peat, which they did not like nearly so well as pine-logs. It was Madame Erlingsen's business to calculate how much of all these foreign articles would be required for the use ...
— Feats on the Fiord - The third book in "The Playfellow" • Harriet Martineau



Words linked to "Compel" :   demand, ask, condemn, apply, cause, implement, force, stimulate, coerce, shame, hale, compulsion, have, get, pressure, clamor, induce, squeeze, enforce, act, call for, necessitate, walk, move, take, require, make, postulate, need, thrust, involve, impose



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