enforce

Verb

enforce (third-person singular simple present enforces, present participle enforcing, simple past and past participle enforced)

1. To keep up, impose or bring into effect something, not necessarily by force.
   • The police are there to enforce the law.
   • Our task is only half finished. It will be my duty to enforce the decisions of the conference and I hereby pledge myself to that end.1929, Chiang Kai-shek, quoted in “Nationalist Notes,” Time, 11 February, 1929
2. To apply a rule or enforcement action to a person or user account.
   • This will give us the tools we need to enforce accounts like these.
3. To give strength or force to; to affirm, to emphasize.
   • The victim was able to enforce his evidence against the alleged perpetrator.
4. (obsolete, transitive) To strengthen (a castle, town etc.) with extra troops, fortifications etc.
5. (obsolete, transitive) To intensify, make stronger, add force to.
6. (obsolete, reflexive) To exert oneself, to try hard.
   • I pray you enforce youreselff at that justis that ye may be beste, for my love.1470–1485 (date produced), Thomas Malory, “(please specify the chapter)”, in [Le Morte Darthur], book VII, [London: […] by William Caxton], published 31 July 1485, →OCLC; republished as H[einrich]...
7. (obsolete) To compel, oblige (someone or something); to force.
   • Sweete prince I come, these these thy amorous lines, / Might haue enforst me to haue swum from France, / And like Leander gaspt vpon the sande, / So thou wouldst smile and take me in thy armes.1594, Christopher Marlow[e], The Troublesome Raigne and Lamentable Death of Edward the Second, King of England: […], London: […] [Eliot’s Court Press] for Henry Bell, […], published 1622, →OCLC...
   • Uladislaus the Second, King of Poland, and Peter Dunnius, Earl of Shrine[…]had been hunting late, and were enforced to lodge in a poor cottage.1624, Democritus Junior [pseudonym; Robert Burton], The Anatomy of Melancholy: […], 2nd edition, Oxford, Oxfordshire: […] John Lichfield and James Short, for Henry Cripps, →OCLC, partition I, section...
8. (obsolete) To make or gain by force; to force.
   • to enforce a passage
   • Ne shame he thought to shonne so hideous might, / The ydle stroke, enforcing furious way, / Missing the marke of his misaymed sight / Did fall to ground […]1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book I, Canto VIII”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC, page 106
9. (obsolete) To put in motion or action by violence; to drive.
   • Auster and Aquilon with winged Steeds
     All ſweating, tilt about the watery heauens,
     With ſhiuering ſpeares enforcing thunderclaps,
     And from their ſhields ſtrike flames of lighteningc. 1587–1588 (date written), [Christopher Marlowe], Tamburlaine the Great. […] The First Part […], 2nd edition, part 1, London: […] [R. Robinson for] Richard Iones, […], published 1592, →OCLC...
   • If they’ll do neither, we will come to them, / And make them skirr away, as swift as stones / Enforced from the old Assyrian slings:1599 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Life of Henry the Fift”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount...
10. (obsolete) To give force to; to strengthen; to invigorate; to energize.
    • to enforce arguments or requests
    • [T]he eloquence of the declaration, not contradicting, but enforcing sentiments of the truest humanity, has left stings that have penetrated more than skin-deep into my mind […]1796, Edmund Burke, “Letter I. On the Overtures of Peace.”, in Two Letters Addressed to a Member of the Present Parliament on the Proposals for Peace with the Regicide Directory of France, London...
11. (obsolete) To urge; to ply hard; to lay much stress upon.
    • In this point charge him home, that he affects / Tyrannical power: if he evade us there, / Enforce him with his envy to the people, / And that the spoil got on the Antiates / Was ne’er distributed.c. 1608–1609 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedy of Coriolanus”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward]...
12. (obsolete) To prove; to evince.
    • But what argument are ye able to shew, whereby it was euer prooued by Caluin, that any one sentence of Scripture doth necessarily enforce these things, or the rest wherein your opinion concurreth with his against the orders of your owne Church?[1594], Richard Hooker, “A Preface to Them that Seeke (as They Tearme It) the Reformation of Lawes and Orders Ecclesiasticall, in the Church of England”, in J[ohn] S[penser], editor, Of the Lawes of...