impel

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The stars incline but do not impel, and we should always remember the principal of the Free Will.

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Definitions (7)

Toggle American Heritage definitions American Heritage Dictionary (2)

  1. transitive verb To urge to action through moral pressure; drive: I was impelled by events to take a stand.
  2. transitive verb To drive forward; propel.

Toggle Century definitions Century Dictionary (2)

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

Toggle WordNet definitions WordNet (2)

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Examples (50)

  • The stars incline but do not impel, and we should always remember the principal of the Free Will. —  Find Free Articles - ArticlesBase
  • This does not make me blind to his faults (with his Hillary-hatred topping my personal list), but it does impel me from time to time to compose a poetic tribute. —  The Moderate Voice
  • It is not elegant literature alone that boys need, but inspiring ideals which will impel them to stand fearlessly to their guns, to do the hard thing with untiring perseverance, to reach the result with unerring insight. —  The Common Room
  • I never cease to be amazed that our societies are so corrupt as to allow one tiny, bellicose and belligerent group to dominate debate and impel us all to religious war, all the time demanding unstinting praise and adulation, and vilifying any who dare differ as racists, the most pathological projection imaginable. —  Dissident Voice
  • Thereupon His goodness once realized draws us to love Him unselfishly, yet more than our own needs impel us to love Him selfishly: even as the Samaritans told the woman who announced that it was Christ who was at the well: ` Now we believe, not because of thy saying: for we have heard Him ourselves, and know that this is indeed the Christ, the savior of the world '(John 4.42). —  felix hominum
 

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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

impel:   impelling ·  impelled ·  impels
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 impellen, from Latin impellere : in-, against; see in-2 + pellere, to drive; see pel-5 in Indo-European roots.

Toggle Century etymologies Century Dictionary (1)

  1. Formerly also impell; = Old French impeller = Spanish impeler = Portuguese impellir = Italian impellere, from Latin impellere, inpellere, push, drive, or strike against, drive forward, urge, impel, from in, on, + pellere, drive. Cf. compel, expel, propel, repel. Hence impulse, etc.
 

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/ɪmˈpɛl/
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