Word.ws English Dictionary

coact

UK/kəʊˈakt/

coact verb: to compel, constrain, force.

Verb (1)

coact (third-person singular simple present coacts, present participle coacting, simple past and past participle coacted)

  1. (obsolete) To compel, constrain, force.
    • The faith and service of Christ ought to be voluntary and not coacted.1563 March 30 (Gregorian calendar), John Foxe, Actes and Monuments of These Latter and Perillous Dayes, […], London: […] Iohn Day, […], →OCLC

Adjective

coact (comparative more coact, superlative most coact)

  1. (obsolete) Forced, constrained, done under compulsion.
    • too much solitariness […] is either coact, enforced, or else voluntary., vol.I, New York, 2001, p.244

Verb (2)

coact (third-person singular simple present coacts, present participle coacting, simple past and past participle coacted)

  1. (rare) To work together.
    Synonyms:
    cooperate

Synonyms of coact

Forms of coact

Verb
third-person singular presentcoacts
present participlecoacting
past participlecoacted
pastcoacted
alternative formco-act
Adjective
comparativemore coact
superlativemost coact

Origin of coact

From the participle stem of Latin cōgō.

From co- + act.

Questions about coact

What does coact mean?
Coact means to compel, constrain, force.
What part of speech is coact?
Coact can be a verb or an adjective.
How do you pronounce coact?
Coact is pronounced /kəʊˈakt/ (UK).
What is the past tense of coact?
The past tense of coact is coacted.

Words near coact in the dictionary

  1. coachwright
  2. coachwrights
  3. coachy
  4. coachyard
  5. coachyards
  6. coact
  7. coacted
  8. coactee
  9. coactees
  10. coacting
  11. coaction

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: coact (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “coact.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/coact. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.