coerce

From Latin coercere (“to surround, encompass, restrain, control, curb”), from co- (“together”) + arcere (“to inclose, confine, keep off”); see arcade, arcane, ark.

• (General American) IPA^(key): /koʊˈɝs/

• Audio (US):

  (file)

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /kəʊˈɜːs/
• Rhymes: -ɜː(ɹ)s

coerce (third-person singular simple present coerces, present participle coercing, simple past and past participle coerced)

1. (transitive) To restrain by force, especially by law or authority; to repress; to curb.
2. (transitive) To use force, threat, fraud, or intimidation in an attempt to compel one to act against their will.

   Synonym: hustle

   They coerced their children into going to the country park.

   • 1984 December 22, Gayle Rubin, “Censored: Anti-Porn Laws And Women's Liberation”, in Gay Community News, volume 12, number 23, page 8:

     A woman who freely engages in any of these activities, or who rejects anti-porn dogma, is thought to be coerced, brainwashed, an apologist of the patriarchy or a "social man." A woman who agrees that she has been coerced into one of these activities will be honored by anti-porners. The opinions of the rest of us are routinely discounted.

3. (transitive, computing) To force an attribute, normally of a data type, to take on the attribute of another data type.

• compel
• bully
• dragoon

• “coerce”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.
• William Dwight Whitney, Benjamin E[li] Smith, editors (1911), “coerce”, in The Century Dictionary […], New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., →OCLC.

coercē

1. second-person singular present active imperative of coerceō

coerce

1. inflection of coercer:
   1. third-person singular present indicative
   2. second-person singular imperative