Crossword clues for compelling
Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Compel \Com*pel"\, v. t. [imp. & p. p. Compelled; p. pr. & vb. n. Compelling.] [L. compellere, compulsum, to drive together, to compel, urge; com- + pellere to drive: cf. OF. compellir. See Pulse.]
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To drive or urge with force, or irresistibly; to force; to constrain; to oblige; to necessitate, either by physical or moral force.
Wolsey . . . compelled the people to pay up the whole subsidy at once.
--Hallam.And they compel one Simon . . . to bear his cross.
--Mark xv. 21. -
To take by force or violence; to seize; to exact; to extort. [R.]
Commissions, which compel from each The sixth part of his substance.
--Shak. -
To force to yield; to overpower; to subjugate.
Easy sleep their weary limbs compelled.
--Dryden.I compel all creatures to my will.
--Tennyson. To gather or unite in a crowd or company. [A Latinism] ``In one troop compelled.''
--Dryden.-
To call forth; to summon. [Obs.]
--Chapman.She had this knight from far compelled.
--Spenser.Syn: To force; constrain; oblige; necessitate; coerce. See Coerce.
Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
c.1600, present participle adjective from compel. Meaning "irresistible" is from 1901. Related: Compellingly.
Wiktionary
requiring urgent attention. v
(present participle of compel English)
WordNet
See compel
adj. driving or forcing; "compelling ambition"
tending to persuade by forcefulness of argument; "new and compelling evidence"
Usage examples of "compelling".
When we happened to find those places already tenanted by other men, we forced them by violence to quit the premises, and defrauded the miserable victims of prostitution of the mean salary the law allows them, after compelling them to yield to our brutality.
The amphicyon glared in helpless rage at the small human sitting high above it, the human that was forcing, bending, compelling.
He went fast, knowing that his careful battle line would be shredded by the oaks, but also knowing that any chance of finding an open Yankee flank was too compelling to be ignored.
So compelling was his message, so unusual his appearance, that within a week Palestinians as far away as Jerusalem, nearly fifty miles southeast of Bethabara, had been alerted.
I heard the rhythmic beat of the drum, the booming bodhran, urgent, compelling.
Teenocracy, a campily compelling future history whose retrospective unlikelihood reveals just how wrong a linear sf projection can be.
On the contrary, he became very aggressive in compelling them to respect the laws and authority of the United States, and largely through his firmness and stern efforts the whole Fenian campaign was abandoned.
The act of the three Fools was peculiarly compelling, faintly disturbing, wistful and wild in turns, austere and scatological, the exhortations of gentle fanatics, anarchists with a sense of humour, three raucous saints who were immensely professional in their direct simplicity.
Caroline Fordyce and wondering at the compelling sensations that had gripped him.
Compelling physical evidence - photos, for example, or diaries, or gonorrhoea or chlamydia in the child - have in some cases come to light.
His extra foot of height gave him an advantage, compelling Jaguarundi to extend those flashing arms to their limit, making the hybrid work harder.
However, the fact remains that for the two centuries since, Lesotho has been entirely overshadowed by the much more compelling story of South Africa as a whole.
The characters are compelling, and watching Lukan develop from a good but gentle and very ordinary man into a hero with an iron will, fascinated me.
At the same time, however, Article 9 also possessed a compelling psychological attraction to a shattered people sick of war and burdened by the knowledge that much of the world reviled them as inherently militaristic and untrustworthy.
A challenge to string theory is to provide a compelling explanation of present and future neutrino data, especially if experiments ultimately show that neutrinos do have a tiny but nonzero mass.