compel.
To drive together, round up.
Meaning & usage
To drive together, round up.
The shepherds compelled the stray sheep into the fold as night began to fall.
To overpower; to subdue.
To force, constrain, or coerce.
Logic compels the wise, while fools feel compelled by emotions.
Congratulations, your courage compels respect.
To forcefully or powerfully motivate (a course of action).
To have a strong, irresistible force (on someone or something).
To exact, extort, (make) produce by force.
To force to yield; to overpower; to subjugate.
To gather or unite in a crowd or company.
To call forth; to summon.
Where this word comes from
Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *ḱe? Proto-Indo-European *ḱóm Proto-Italic *kom Proto-Italic *kom- Latin con- Proto-Indo-European *pel- Proto-Indo-European *pelh₂-der. Proto-Indo-European *-né-der. Proto-Italic *pelnōder. Latin pellō Latin compellerebor. Middle French compellirbor. Middle English compellen English compel From Middle English compellen, borrowed from Middle French compellir, from Latin compellere, itself from com- (“together”) + pellere (“to drive”). Displaced native Old English nīedan.
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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.
Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.