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Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
enforce
verb
COLLOCATIONS FROM OTHER ENTRIES
enforce a ban (=make sure that it is obeyed)
▪ New measures must be taken to enforce the ban on guns and knives.
enforce a law (=make people obey a law)
▪ It is the job of the police to enforce the law.
enforce a rule (=make sure that it is obeyed)
▪ The planning office does not always enforce its own rules.
enforce discipline (=make people obey the rules, especially by using punishment)
▪ It is entirely for your own good that we enforce discipline.
enforce sanctions (=make sure they are obeyed)
▪ The UN will have the job of enforcing the sanctions.
enforced exile (=when someone is forced to go into exile)
▪ After 12 years of enforced exile abroad, Almeyda returned home to Salvador.
ensure/secure/enforce compliance
▪ The staff involved should be monitored to ensure compliance with the policy.
strictly enforced
▪ The ban on hunting is not strictly enforced.
COLLOCATIONS FROM CORPUS
■ ADVERB
strictly
▪ Space on the ground in the narrow paddock is limited by strictly enforced rules.
▪ But a return to a strictly enforced standard becomes more and more difficult as the gap between generations widens.
▪ Now that the war is almost over, Moscow's information embargo is less strictly enforced.
▪ A legal ban on the hunting of wildlife is not strictly enforced.
▪ Even headmen not in league with cattle thieves had little interest in strictly enforcing the regulations.
■ NOUN
act
▪ The federal government worked vigorously to enforce the new act and to suppress attempted violations.
▪ The courts recognize and will enforce only acts of Parliament.
▪ They wanted state authorities to enforce the Fugitive Slave Act to avoid establishing new precedents for national intervention in state affairs.
action
▪ The wife brought an action to enforce the revised agreement and the husband argued that the agreement was unsupported by consideration.
agency
▪ Their unsuccessful efforts included a move to block the Environmental Protection Agency from enforcing provisions of environmental laws now on the books.
agreement
▪ The wife brought an action to enforce the revised agreement and the husband argued that the agreement was unsupported by consideration.
▪ Though uniform standards will not be enforced, the agreement calls for joint monitoring of pollution.
▪ However, Rees also notes that collusion requires a mechanism to enforce agreements.
▪ The franchiser tried to keep the spat out of court by enforcing an arbitration agreement in the franchise contract.
▪ If the trader fails to comply with these requirements, he is not allowed to enforce the agreement against the customer.
▪ An action was then brought to enforce the costs agreement.
▪ Close-knit communities have ways of enforcing such agreements.
attempt
▪ Clearly no government can legislate for such a wide array of circumstances, let alone attempt to enforce such legislation.
▪ No confrontation occurred because no attempt was made to enforce the law.
▪ The government offered no special finance for public works, and made no attempt to enforce implementation.
authority
▪ Outside, the military authorities began enforcing an undeclared night-time curfew.
▪ They wanted state authorities to enforce the Fugitive Slave Act to avoid establishing new precedents for national intervention in state affairs.
▪ Nevertheless, local authorities may enforce the law as it stands.
▪ Congress had passed these two sections to give the president authority to enforce federal law without a state request.
▪ This is not enough to show that anyone can have authority to introduce or enforce such a scheme.
▪ He asked Office minister David Mellor whether he still wished or instructed local authorities to enforce the law as it now stands.
ban
▪ The militants enforced the ban on cheating in school exams, and even that old tradition disappeared.
▪ Wednesday afternoon, riot police were out on the streets of Belgrade to enforce a ban on marches by anti-Milosevic demonstrators.
▪ And there's some doubt as to whether the council can make its tenant farmers enforce the ban.
charge
▪ A company is allowed to carry on business in the usual way until steps are taken to enforce the charge.
▪ The son failed to repay the loan and the finance company sought to enforce the charge.
code
▪ But unease continues over the powers it will have to enforce its code.
▪ Some superiors were more zealous than others to enforce the disciplinary code.
▪ The county would also enforce its outdoor lighting code, Huckelberry told the residents.
contract
▪ Such a person can enforce the contract against the other party but can not generally himself be sued.
▪ The law lends its weight to uphold and enforce contracts freely entered into.
▪ They or their heirs can enforce this contract against one another for the whole period.
▪ The statutory assignment has the advantage of enabling the purchaser to enforce the contracts directly against the supplier rather than through the vendor.
▪ Riche brought an action against the company seeking to enforce the contract.
control
▪ We will enforce effective pollution control regulations while helping farmers to meet the high standards required.
court
▪ Whenever the courts enforce a promise on the ground that another has relied upon it, a transfer of wealth occurs.
▪ The franchiser tried to keep the spat out of court by enforcing an arbitration agreement in the franchise contract.
▪ But it was the duty of the courts to enforce the laws made by Parliament.
▪ They created a system of elected building captains and court captains to enforce them.
▪ The decision in 1949 to establish a court to enforce and interpret the Constitution was a historical act of revenge on Bismarck.
▪ Apparently, he now believed that court orders could be enforced with troops, which he had denied during the Meredith incident.
▪ Second, non-compliance with regulatory rules may be a ground upon which the court will refuse to enforce a stipulation of confidence.
▪ The courts recognize and will enforce only acts of Parliament.
covenant
▪ Lord Wellworthy can enforce the covenant only whilst he retains the legal estate in the Stately Mansion Hotel.
decision
▪ And one who has the power to enforce his decisions, if need be, with armed might!
▪ That is, only the state has the right to use violence to enforce the laws and decisions of the society.
▪ They certainly exercised this power, but their ability to enforce their decisions appeared to be weak.
▪ Thus strong powers are needed by the centre to enforce decisions.
duty
▪ This raises the possibility of an employee with a shareholding being allowed to enforce the section 309 duty derivatively.
▪ It manipulates the environment, and it is able to enforce moral duties on those who are inclined to disregard them.
▪ There is therefore the broadest possible political consensus behind the pressures to enforce such a duty to disarm.
effort
▪ Rigby worked with ardour to suppress trafficking in slaves and his efforts to enforce the 1845 treaty were unremitting.
▪ Southerners struck back against such efforts to enforce equality.
▪ As in post-Pearl Harbour U.S.A., a meatless day each week was decreed, but little effort made to enforce it.
government
▪ Most existing international agreements depend on governments to enforce rules on companies.
▪ Shell argues that rather than introducing new requirements of dubious value, governments should enforce existing regulations to force sub-standard ships out of business.
▪ The federal government worked vigorously to enforce the new act and to suppress attempted violations.
▪ Should not the Government enforce the statutory responsibilities of local authorities?
▪ Obviously the effectiveness of these proposals depends on how the government chooses to enforce the regulations.
▪ The government will start to enforce the insurance regulation as of today.
judgment
▪ If he does not, the successful plaintiff can enforce the judgment by causing a writ of execution to be issued.
▪ A party entitled to enforce the judgment or order may apply on affidavit to issue the necessary process.
▪ Ultimately it may well fall to the authorities of State B to enforce the judgment against Secundus and his assets.
law
▪ Certain norms are formalized by translation into laws which are enforced by official sanctions.
▪ They contend that the commissioner is required by law to enforce the anti-redlining regulation, regardless of personal preference.
▪ Though the laws were rarely enforced, the Cayman Islands turned away a cruise liner chartered by 1,000 gay men in 1999.
▪ Criminal syndicalist laws were enforced and resulted in the jailing of political activists.
▪ Though not all laws are enforced with equal vigour, criminal law defines crime as it is officially recognized.
▪ Lottery sales to juveniles are illegal, but laws are often not enforced.
▪ The administration of law and order may enforce another definition of crime which is different from the legal definition.
▪ Others think speed laws should be better enforced.
legislation
▪ Those who anticipate that both will be granted will campaign for legislation to enforce a new schedule of environmental safeguards.
▪ But the report fails to live up to expectations in looking at how new legislation will be enforced.
▪ To provide advice and guidance to businesses to enable them to comply with the requirements of the legislation enforced.
limit
▪ Judicial review can be used to enforce those statutory limits.
▪ Other approaches include limiting vehicle horsepower, placing warning signs to mark hazards and enforcing speed limits.
▪ In built-up areas, for example, special slow-reacting catalytic surfaces will automatically enforce the speed limit.
means
▪ This contradicts the spirit of the supplementary benefit regulations and suggests that the means test is being enforced with new vigour.
▪ The committal order was for failing to attend court for examination of his means in proceedings to enforce judgement debts against him.
▪ There are currently no statutory means to enforce their protection.
order
▪ A party entitled to enforce the judgment or order may apply on affidavit to issue the necessary process.
▪ Whipped by bad fortune, surrendering to the inexorable gravity of downward-sliding consequences, Edna enforced home order without compromise.
▪ The Board, for example, had no power to enforce its own orders.
▪ As segregation and violence became commonplace, the national government expressed no willingness to enforce a new racial order.
▪ The government was bitterly denounced for the emergency measures it was taking to enforce order.
▪ Modern selfhood is created and regulated by institutions, child-rearing, and ongoing socialization that enforce the modern order.
party
▪ A party entitled to enforce the judgment or order may apply on affidavit to issue the necessary process.
peace
▪ This was solved by the nuclear genes enforcing their preference for peace through unilateral disarmament.
police
▪ It implies that the police fully enforces every law against the citizen.
▪ Although there are standards, no Internet police exists to enforce them.
▪ There has been an historical reluctance on the part of the police to enforce the section, which is perhaps to be regretted.
▪ Brown said it was never his intention to stop police from enforcing the laws.
▪ Why do the police not enforce the law?
policy
▪ And enforcing his policies is only part of the problem.
power
▪ And one who has the power to enforce his decisions, if need be, with armed might!
▪ The Board, for example, had no power to enforce its own orders.
▪ Respondents identified a number of procedural deficiencies in the Act which was said to lack sufficient powers to enforce compliance.
▪ The Congress shall have the power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this Article.
▪ The courts may recognize them, but the courts have no power to enforce them.
▪ Ultimately, the force of the constitution depends upon the will of those with political power to enforce its provisions.
▪ But remember, codes have no legal status and they are only as good as the organisation's power to enforce them.
▪ This spelled the end of the Brezhnev doctrine, under which Soviet military power enforced the loyalty of its peripheral satellite states.
regulation
▪ There were difficulties enforcing regulations at the Colombo slaughterhouse.
▪ It is even harder to enforce the regulations.
▪ The Government hopes it will help councils enforce hygiene regulations.
▪ They contend that the commissioner is required by law to enforce the anti-redlining regulation, regardless of personal preference.
▪ Shell argues that rather than introducing new requirements of dubious value, governments should enforce existing regulations to force sub-standard ships out of business.
▪ It should have enforced its post-1986 regulations more effectively.
▪ Every precaution will be taken to enforce regulations, traceability and labelling.
▪ The work of regulatory agencies was also undermined by budget cuts and a concerted unwillingness to enforce existing regulations.
requirement
▪ The applicant sought judicial review of the Director's decision to seek to enforce compliance with the requirements of the notice.
▪ How am I going to encourage and, if it becomes necessary, enforce these requirements and rules?
right
▪ In the new Parliament, we will legislate to enforce and enhance these rights.
▪ Employees are scared to enforce their rights because if they did they would be unfairly dismissed.
rule
▪ But it is one thing to have rules, another to enforce them.
▪ In the meantime it is sufficient to note that the position where the rules are barely enforced at all is far from satisfactory.
▪ Compliance with these rules will be enforced by the appropriate authorities in each member state.
security
▪ In due course the bank sought to enforce its security.
standard
▪ If states failed to set or enforce standards, the Department of Health, Education and Welfare could intervene.
▪ Because Apple refused to license its technology to clone makers, it could enforce hardware and software standards.
▪ Paul who were supposedly too earthly in their pastoral concerns and too lenient in enforcing doctrine and liturgical standards.
▪ But a return to a strictly enforced standard becomes more and more difficult as the gap between generations widens.
▪ Because all the control lay with a central bureaucracy-the local housing authority-residents were powerless to enforce standards of behavior or evict criminals.
▪ Communities enforce standards of behavior more effectively than bureaucracies or service professionals.
state
▪ Just as thirty years before, here again were feminist divisions over using the repressive state to enforce women's demands.
▪ Jeff Groscost actually wanted the Legislature to determine whether a species was truly endangered before the state enforced federal protections.
▪ Ultimately it may well fall to the authorities of State B to enforce the judgment against Secundus and his assets.
▪ Because the state tried to enforce a monopoly on ideas, intellectuals were both at great risk and terrifically influential.
▪ The growth of constitutionalism raised the problem of how the limitations imposed on the state were to be enforced.
▪ Kids have to spend more time driving with an adult in the car, but how will the state enforce it?
▪ Is it unreasonable that it should also be empowered to decide on the judgment of a state tribunal enforcing such unconstitutional law?
▪ They wanted state authorities to enforce the Fugitive Slave Act to avoid establishing new precedents for national intervention in state affairs.
zone
▪ Military experts think more than 50 fighter jets would be needed to enforce the zone.
▪ S.-enforced no-fly zone.
▪ However, those ships can not enforce the no-fly zone.
■ VERB
begin
▪ Outside, the military authorities began enforcing an undeclared night-time curfew.
continue
▪ If so, do we need our ethical and legal rules to continue to respect and enforce this distinction?
fail
▪ All have failed so far to enforce that deadline.
help
▪ The Government hopes it will help councils enforce hygiene regulations.
▪ The government has already introduced tougher laws on food hygiene and now it hopes the register will help council officers enforce them.
require
▪ However, Rees also notes that collusion requires a mechanism to enforce agreements.
▪ They contend that the commissioner is required by law to enforce the anti-redlining regulation, regardless of personal preference.
▪ Another would be a regulation that requires banks to enforce a 30-day waiting period for withdrawals of pass-book deposits.
seek
▪ The applicant sought judicial review of the Director's decision to seek to enforce compliance with the requirements of the notice.
▪ Riche brought an action against the company seeking to enforce the contract.
try
▪ After years of trying to enforce a regular bedtime, Katherine and Gary had just given up.
▪ Because the state tried to enforce a monopoly on ideas, intellectuals were both at great risk and terrifically influential.
▪ The management has given up trying to enforce proper movie-watching behavior.
▪ Family decorum is usually not well served by trying to enforce a multitude of rules and complicated procedures.
use
▪ Judicial review can be used to enforce those statutory limits.
▪ That is, only the state has the right to use violence to enforce the laws and decisions of the society.
▪ Now he is using his status to enforce a new brand of elitism.
EXAMPLES FROM OTHER ENTRIES
▪ a period of enforced silence
▪ It's difficult to enforce discipline in these surroundings.
▪ The police are strict here about enforcing the speed limit.
EXAMPLES FROM CORPUS
▪ But after 18 months of enforced dormancy, both have been given new life and relevance.
▪ But he is not entitled to go behind the Act to show that section 18 should not be enforced.
▪ But it is one thing to have rules, another to enforce them.
▪ Long periods of enforced coexistence may include concessions or agreements and important, often fruitful, cultural exchange.
▪ The franchiser tried to keep the spat out of court by enforcing an arbitration agreement in the franchise contract.
▪ The office does a poor job enforcing the cases it has now, she said.
▪ The only answer to this is to develop a comprehensive programme of accounting standards and to enforce them vigorously.
▪ They are willing to explain but not to enforce.
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Enforce

Enforce \En*force"\, v. t. [imp. & p. p. Enforced; p. pr. & vb. n. Enforcing.] [OF. enforcier to strengthen, force, F. enforcir; pref. en- (L. in) + F. force. See Force.]

  1. To put force upon; to force; to constrain; to compel; as, to enforce obedience to commands.

    Inward joy enforced my heart to smile.
    --Shak.

  2. To make or gain by force; to obtain by force; as, to enforce a passage. ``Enforcing furious way.''
    --Spenser.

  3. To put in motion or action by violence; to drive.

    As swift as stones Enforced from the old Assyrian slings.
    --Shak.

  4. To give force to; to strengthen; to invigorate; to urge with energy; as, to enforce arguments or requests.

    Enforcing sentiment of the thrust humanity.
    --Burke.

  5. To put in force; to cause to take effect; to give effect to; to execute with vigor; as, to enforce the laws.

  6. To urge; to ply hard; to lay much stress upon.

    Enforce him with his envy to the people.
    --Shak.

Enforce

Enforce \En*force\, v. i.

  1. To attempt by force. [Obs.]

  2. To prove; to evince. [R.]
    --Hooker.

  3. To strengthen; to grow strong. [Obs.]
    --Chaucer.

Enforce

Enforce \En*force"\, n. Force; strength; power. [Obs.]

A petty enterprise of small enforce.
--Milton.

Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
enforce

mid-14c., "to drive by physical force; to try, attempt, strive; to fortify, strengthen a place;" late 14c. as "exert force, compel; make stronger, reinforce; strengthen an argument; grow stronger, become violent," from Old French enforcier "strengthen, reinforce; use force (on), offer violence (to); oppress; violate, rape" (12c.) or a native formation from en- (1) "make, put in" + force (n.). Meaning "compel obedience to (a law, etc.) is from 1640s. Related: Enforced; enforcing.

Wiktionary
enforce

vb. 1 (context obsolete transitive English) To strengthen (a castle, town etc.) with extra troops, fortifications etc. (14th-18thc.) 2 (context obsolete transitive English) To intensify, make stronger, add force to. (14th-18thc.) 3 (context obsolete reflexive English) To exert oneself, to try hard. (14th-17thc.) 4 To give strength or force to; to affirm, to emphasize. (from 15thc.) 5 (context archaic English) To compel, oblige (someone or something); to force. (from 16thc.) 6 To keep up, impose or bring into effect something, not necessarily by force. (from 17thc.) 7 (context obsolete English) To make or gain by force; to force. 8 (context obsolete English) To put in motion or action by violence; to drive. 9 (context obsolete English) To give force to; to strengthen; to invigorate; to urge with energy. 10 (context obsolete English) To urge; to ply hard; to lay much stress upon. 11 To prove; to evince.

WordNet
enforce
  1. v. ensure observance of laws and rules; "Apply the rules to everyone"; [syn: implement, apply] [ant: exempt]

  2. compel to behave in a certain way; "Social relations impose courtesy" [syn: impose]

Usage examples of "enforce".

However, the Supreme Court declined to sustain Congress when, under the guise of enforcing the Fourteenth Amendment by appropriate legislation, it enacted a statute which was not limited to take effect only in case a State should abridge the privileges of United States citizens, but applied no matter how well the State might have performed its duty, and would subject to punishment private individuals who conspired to deprive anyone of the equal protection of the laws.

He would not be trapped in a chair, the enforced stillness making him acutely conscious of the body separating him from God.

Also, in a suit to enforce double liability, brought in Rhode Island against a stockholder in a Kansas trust company, the courts of Rhode Island were held to be obligated to extend recognition to the statutes and court decisions of Kansas whereunder it is established that a Kansas judgment recovered by a creditor against the trust company is not only conclusive as to the liability of the corporation but also an adjudication binding each stockholder therein.

Juss, enforcing his half frozen limbs to resume the ascent, beheld a sight of woe too terrible for the eye: a young man, helmed and graithed in dark iron, a black-a-moor with goggle-eyes and white teeth agrin, who held by the neck a fair young lady kneeling on her knees and clasping his as in supplication, and he most bloodily brandishing aloft his spear of six foot of length as minded to reave her of her life.

He did not know how long his enforced stay in Alb would last, or how long his memory of another life would sustain and give him an advantage.

I will venture, indeed, to enforce my views on this subject by a little apologue which I have somewhere read, or heard,--or invented.

Thus the threat of blacklisting would be an effective sanction to enforce compliance with arbitrated contracts.

In other cases, arbitration may be unsatisfactory if the arbitrator, unlike the court, has no way of enforcing his decisions.

Prejudice, Argent had found in his dealing around the world, was established and enforced by wealth.

The daughter of a wealthy coal owner from County Durham, she brought the consolations of the Quaker faith to her enforced marriage with the Basher, and she needed them.

As often as the tale was embellished with new incidents or enforced by new testimony, the hearer grew pale, his breath was stifled by inquietudes, his blood was chilled, and his stomach was bereaved of its usual energies.

Other ships of task force split off to enforce blockade further around perimeter of Home Islands, the line the Americans have called exclusion zone boundary.

But at last when the hunt was up in the mountains, and especially of the wild bulls, the heart and the might in him so arose that he enforced himself to do well, and the wild men wondered at his prowess, whereas he was untried in this manner of sports, and they deemed him one of the Gods, and said that their kinsman had done well to get him so good a friend.

Before his departure for Lombardy, Chaucer -- still holding his post in the Customs -- selected two representatives or trustees, to protect his estate against legal proceedings in his absence, or to sue in his name defaulters and offenders against the imposts which he was charged to enforce.

The minds of the Americans had been chafed to such a degree by their original grievances, and the measures which had been adopted to enforce their quiescence, that they became every day more and more disaffected toward the English government.