Word.ws English Dictionary

How to use compel in a sentence

40 example sentences · verb

Compel means to drive together, round up. Example: “The shepherds compelled the stray sheep into the fold as night began to fall.”

Examples of compel by meaning

verbTo drive together, round up.

  • The shepherds compelled the stray sheep into the fold as night began to fall.

verbTo overpower; to subdue.

  • She had one of those perfect faces, which irresistibly compel the soul of a man.1917, Upton Sinclair, chapter 16, in King Coal

verbTo force, constrain, or coerce.

  • Logic compels the wise, while fools feel compelled by emotions.
  • Congratulations, your courage compels respect.
  • Sellafield compels this kind of gaze into the abyss of deep time because it is a place where multiple time spans – some fleeting, some cosmic – drift in and out of view.December 15, 2022, Samanth Subramanian, “Dismantling Sellafield: the epic task of shutting down a nuclear site”, in The Guardian

verbTo forcefully or powerfully motivate (a course of action).

  • As the novel progresses, it picks up a propulsive energy, the kind that compels you to keep reading straight through to the end.November 1, 2022, J. Courtney Sullivan, “In Northern Ireland During the Troubles, a Secret Romance”, in The New York Times

verbTo exact, extort, (make) produce by force.

  • The Queen has nothing but the power to execute the laws, to adjust grievances and to compel order.1912, L. Frank Baum, chapter 14, in Sky Island

More sentences with compel

  • After eating a full meal, the human body's necessity for food will compel the person to eat again in the future.From the entry necessity
  • She felt compelled to manage up because her boss seemed to be missing the significance of the risk.From the entry manage up
  • “Our faith compels us to serve each person in our care with dignity and compassion.”2025 May 12, Peter Smith, “Episcopal Church says it won’t help resettle white South Africans granted refugee status in US”, in Associated…. From the entry Afrikaner
  • As much as I would love to, something compels me not to.”2021 September 2, Paul Simms, “The Prisoner” (2058: from the start), in What We Do in the Shadows, season 3, episode 1, spoken by Nadja of…. From the entry peen
  • Women’s suppression compels them to live in their self-exiled and alienated world.2016, Kaptan Singh, Women in Exile and Alienation. From the entry self-exiled
  • But we shall only be forehanded by creating institutions to compel forehandedness.2014, Harold J. Laski, A Grammar of Politics, →ISBN. From the entry forehandedness
  • I do believe state policymakers are very compelled to address those early years.2013, United States. Congress. House. Committee on Education and the Workforce, Education Research, page 42. From the entry compelled
  • It was more like he was being compelled against his will.2012, Cate Tiernan, Darkness Falls, page 62. From the entry zomg
  • Before the disc jockey, stations were compelled to acquire a flunky: the lowly pancake turner.2009, Mark Coleman, Playback. From the entry pancake turner
  • That abandonment, incidentally, compelled Sam’s mother to fill her young son’s head with H.2007 September 23, David Bowman, “Torchlit Crit”, in The New York Times, →ISSN. From the entry Lovecraftian
  • To which I feel compelled to cry in a voice both loud and long -- "Hey!2006 August 14, Amistad, “Triple play”, in rec.collecting.coins (Usenet), retrieved 03 Dec 2022. From the entry Zincoln
  • She would have been compelled for each service to write the (constantly changing) text on a slate.2004, Wybren Scheepsma, Medieval Religious Women in the Low Countries, page 66. From the entry choirbook
  • If he actually files and subpoenas though, the information is really easy to compel in many cases.2003 November 2, Chas, “Seriously considering filing lawsuit.....not a joke.”, in misc.legal (Usenet). From the entry detective
  • For younger readers, I feel compelled to explain what a news cycle is.2003, Gerald R. Baron, Now is Too Late: Survival in an Era of Instant News, FT Press, →ISBN, page 69. From the entry news cycle
  • The temporal order compels you to be exactly when you are at any moment, and nowhen else.1999 February 1, Roger Scruton, An Intelligent Person's Guide to Philosophy, Penguin, →ISBN. From the entry nowhen else
  • This gives his commands an oraclelike quality that compels the actors to obey.1988 December 23, Tom Valeo, “Carne Vale”, in Chicago Reader, archived from the original on 26 Oct 2020. From the entry oraclelike
  • It persuades, coerces, tempts, compels, romances, and orders the customer to do your bidding.1984, Jay Conrad Levinson, Guerrilla Marketing: secrets for making big profits from your small business, Houghton Mifflin, →ISBN, page 35. From the entry guerrilla marketing
  • It was either foolheartiness or drink that finally compelled her to make a move to introduce herself.1977 August 13, David Holland, “Nightspotting”, in Gay Community News, volume 5, number 6, page 13. From the entry foolheartiness
  • This action would compel exchanges and reduce the sting of Black's attack.1962 September, I. A. Horowitz, “Readers' Games”, in Chess Review. From the entry sting
  • The two Communists—whom Boswell compelled to show their party-membership cards to prove they weren’t impostors—were John F.1947 October 15, “Boswell vs. Commies: Round 1 Is a Draw”, in Bergen Evening Record, volume 53, number 111 (15481 overall), Hackensack…. From the entry party-membership card
  • Compelled to flee to South America, he became a noted crusader for the abstract principle of liberty.1945, Jay Monaghan, Abraham Lincoln Deals with Foreign Affairs, →ISBN, page 133. From the entry red shirt
  • One and all, they had been compelled to pick them up and take them elsewhere.1920, P. G. Wodehouse, chapter 2, in The Coming of Bill. From the entry one and all
  • The bayonet is practically neglected by the Bosche, except when our men compel him to use it.1918, Dixhuit, Safety in Trench Warfare for Yourself & Your Men. From the entry chuck up the sponge
  • The Kantian phenomenon is the real as we are compelled to think it.1912, Roy Wood Sellars, “Is There a Cognitive Relation?”, in The Journal of Philosophy, Psychology and Scientific Methods, volume 9…. From the entry phenomenon
  • Here philosophic thought overgrows art and compels it to cling close to the trunk of dialectics.1909, Friedrich Nietzsche, translated by W[illia]m A. Haussmann, edited by Oscar Levy, The Complete Works of Friedrich Nietzsche: The…. From the entry chrysalis
  • But candor's got the drop on me an' compels me to speak my thoughts.1902, Alfred Henry Lewis, Wolfville Days, New York, N.Y.: Grosset & Dunlap Publishers, page 46. From the entry doobious
  • Worry not: Hospitality industry folks say they’re delighted when people feel compelled to take one of these as a keepsake.2022 September 28, Kim Cook, “Why free swag at bars, hotels is so important to brands”, in Toronto Star. From the entry swag
  • I was the only one who was in a position to do it, and I felt very compelled to do so.2021, Liliana Chávez Díaz, Latin American Documentary Narratives, page 223. From the entry compelled
  • The European Commission is pondering how to compel phone companies to come up with a universal plug for their chargers.6 February 2020, “The parable of the plug”, in The Economist. From the entry mither
  • Attempts to compel ordinary people to use the “preferred pronouns” of TRAs will backfire as this is coercion.2018, Una-Jane Winfield, written evidence submitted to the Gender Recognition Act 2004 consultation in the United Kingdom in 2018, page 2. From the entry tra
  • Later on, popular kids would compel me to do their homework with overtures of friendship, only to ignore me at recess.2016 October 21, Crystal Chen, “I ‘Went Back to China’ — and Felt More American than Ever”, in Foreign Policy, archived from the original…. From the entry ching-chong
  • What would compel a viewer to subscribe to the all-coffee channel and binge-watch a guy unpacking coffee makers?2014 February 13, Heather Kelly, “The bizarre, lucrative world of ‘unboxing’ videos”, in CNN. From the entry viewer
  • “And nothing could ever compel me to wear a gable, the most eye-gougingly ugly fashion accessory ever created.”2012, Katherine Longshore, Gilt. From the entry eye-gougingly

Meaning of compel

  1. verb To drive together, round up.
  2. verb To overpower; to subdue.
  3. verb To force, constrain, or coerce.

Full definition of compel

Questions about compel in a sentence

How do you use compel in a sentence?
Compel is used as a verb. For example: “The shepherds compelled the stray sheep into the fold as night began to fall.”
What is a short sentence with compel?
“Congratulations, your courage compels respect.”
What does compel mean?
Compel means to drive together, round up.

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: compel (page history and authors) and the entries each sentence comes from. Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws chose the sentences, left out offensive ones and quotations older than 1900, and marked the word in each. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this page: “How to use compel in a sentence.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/sentences/compel. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.