Meaning of Compulsion | Babel Free

Definitions

1. An irrational need or irresistible urge to perform some action, often despite negative consequences.
   countable, uncountable
2. The use of authority, influence, or other power to force (compel) a person or persons to act.
   countable, uncountable
3. The lawful use of violence (i.e. by the administration).
   countable, uncountable

Equivalents

Examples

“During the basketball game, I had a sudden compulsion to have a smoke.”

“It is tempting to speculate about the incentives or compulsions that might explain why anyone would take to the skies in [the] basket [of a balloon]: perhaps out of a desire to escape the gravity of this world or to get a preview of the next; […].”

“From the opening of the City & South London Railway independent electric locomotives were used under compulsion of the Board of Trade.”

“But Treaty translator and Ottawa leader Andrew Blackbird described the Treaty as made “not with the free will of the Indians, but by compulsion.””

CEFR level