coerce
UK/kəʊˈɜːs//koʊˈɝs/
coerce verb: to restrain by force, especially by law or authority; to repress; to curb.
Verb
coerce (third-person singular simple present coerces, present participle coercing, simple past and past participle coerced)
- To restrain by force, especially by law or authority; to repress; to curb.
- To use force, threat, fraud, or intimidation in an attempt to compel one to act against their will.
- They coerced their children into going to the country park.
- 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...1984 December 22, Gayle Rubin, “Censored: Anti-Porn Laws And Women's Liberation”, in Gay Community News, volume 12, number 23, page 8
- Synonyms:
- hustle
- To force an attribute, normally of a data type, to take on the attribute of another data type.
coerce meaning in Tamil, Urdu, Bengali and Malayalam
coerce in Tamil
- வற்புறுத்து, கட்டாயப்படுத்து, நிர்ப்பந்தி
coerce in Urdu
- غصب کرنا, مجبور کرنا, زبردستی کرنا, زور ڈالنا
coerce in Bengali
- বাধ্য করা
coerce in Malayalam
- ബലാൽക്കാരമായി അനുസരിപ്പിക്കുക, അധികാരം പ്രയോഗിച്ചു തടയുക, ഭീഷണിപ്പെടുത്തുക, ബലംപ്രയോഗിച്ച് നിർബ്ബന്ധിക്കുക
More languagesFewer languages
- coerce in Kannada
- ಬಲಾತ್ಕರಿಸು, ಒತ್ತಾಯಿಸು, ನಿರ್ಬಂಧಗೊಳಿಸು, ಕಡ್ಡಾಯ ಮಾಡು
- coerce in Arabic
- أَجْبَرَ ʔajbara, اِضْطَرَّ iḍṭarra
Examples of coerce in a sentence
- He did not say it of his own free will, but because his captors coerced him.
- He coerces people into things they would never do for anyone else.
- Police interrogators don't have to play fair: they are allowed to lie to or coerce a witness.
Synonyms of coerce
Forms of coerce
| third-person singular present | coerces |
|---|---|
| present participle | coercing |
| past participle | coerced |
| past | coerced |
Origin of coerce
From Latin coërceō (“to surround, encompass, restrain, control, curb”), from co- (“together”) + arceō (“to inclose, confine, keep off”).
Words formed from coerce
Words that rhyme with coerce
36 more rhymesFewer rhymes
- purse
- worse
- -verse
- converse
- excurse
- immerse
- multiverse
- obverse
- terce
- terse
- amerce
- asperse
- herse
- neurodiverse
- perse
- reimburse
- transverse
- a blessing and a curse
- absterse
- accurse
- costotransverse
- demerse
- disburse
- Erse
- intertransverse
- megadiverse
- murse
- nontransverse
- pretransverse
- public purse
- recurse
- renverse
- sperse
- submerse
- subtransverse
- thurse
Questions about coerce
- What does coerce mean?
- Coerce means to restrain by force, especially by law or authority; to repress; to curb.
- What is coerce in Tamil?
- Coerce in Tamil is வற்புறுத்து, கட்டாயப்படுத்து, நிர்ப்பந்தி. See Coerce meaning in Tamil.
- What part of speech is coerce?
- Coerce is a verb.
- How do you pronounce coerce?
- Coerce is pronounced /kəʊˈɜːs/ (UK).
- What is the past tense of coerce?
- The past tense of coerce is coerced.
Words near coerce in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: coerce (page history and authors); coerce (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); coerce (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors); Coerce (Bengali Wiktionary) (page history and authors); coerce (Malayalam Wiktionary) (page history and authors); coerce (Kannada Wiktionary) (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.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-coerce.ogg.
Cite this entry: “coerce.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/coerce. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.