compulsion

Definitions  ·  Examples  ·  Pronunciations  ·  Etymologies  ·  Related  ·  Statistics  ·  Comments  · 
“
But as strong as the pressure of his compulsion was the repulsion of her utter terror, throwing her back away from the railway, so that she spun round and round, on two legs, as if she were in the centre of some whirlwind.

View all »
Definitions (11)

Toggle American Heritage definitions American Heritage Dictionary (4)

  1. noun The act of compelling.
  2. noun The state of being compelled.
  3. noun An irresistible impulse to act, regardless of the rationality of the motivation: "The compulsion to protect the powerful from the discomfort of public disclosure feeds further abuse and neglect” (Boston Globe).
1 more from this dictionary »

Toggle Century definitions Century Dictionary (3)

Toggle GNU Webster definitions GNU Webster's 1913 (1)

Toggle WordNet definitions WordNet (3)

Toggle elsewhere links Elsewhere on the web

View all »
Examples (50)

  • Although he understood that the compulsion was a good part sexual, there was another element that he couldn't name. —  Rebecca York - Beyond Control
  • If every action comes to bear as compulsion, then self-awareness loses salience in that moment. —  Serendip's Exchange -
  • Sometimes you ran into a compulsion that was really deeply buried If the compulsion was a big one, and went back far into childhood, Gloria couldn't do anything directly about it. —  Hex
  • We are not to be driven, we are to be drawn; we are to move by love--compulsion: the Lamb in God is to win the wills of men And I, too, may take my harp and make melodious praise before my King. —  My Daily Meditation for the Circling Year
  • The passions broke loose, and by their violence not unfrequently subjected the will to their dictatorship; together with the will they obscured and prejudiced the reason, which under their compulsion was no longer content to follow the Divine Reason or the Eternal Law of God. —  Mediaeval Socialism
More examples »
 

Tags

compulsion hasn't been tagged yet.

Sign up or sign in to add tags.

Stats

This word has been looked up 332 times.

2 people have marked this word as a favorite.

stop updating
On Twitter

Photos from

flickr images

Add a related word »
Related

Roget's II Roget's II: The New Thesaurus

Allen's Allen's Synonyms and Antonyms

Used in the same context Used in the Same Context

Used in the same contextWord Family

compulsion:   compulsions
Roget's II: The New Thesaurus, Third Edition by the Editors of the American Heritage® Dictionary. Copyright © 2003, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

Etymologies (2)

Toggle American Heritage etymologies American Heritage Dictionary (1)

  1. Middle English, from Old French, from Late Latin compulsiō, compulsiōn-, from Latin compulsus, past participle of compellere, to compel; see compel.

Toggle Century etymologies Century Dictionary (1)

  1. = F. Spanish compulsion = Portuguese compulsão, from Late Latin compulsio(n-), from Latin compellere, past participle compulsus: see compel.
 

Pronunciations
Record your own »
/kəmˈpəlʃən/
by American Heritage

Charts
frequency chart

Bubble size: how much this word was used in a year

Bubble height: used more or less than expected, vs. all uses evenly distributed

You can expect to see this word a few times a month.

Recently looked up

Tog · meta · parting · Flotsam · Toed

Recent Favorites

pygopagus · sanglant · Astacus · sweetbread · qualms

Recent Pronunciations

qualms · poofter · oh for heaven's sake · embodies · silence