oblige.
To constrain someone by force or by social, moral or legal means.
Meaning & usage
To constrain someone by force or by social, moral or legal means.
Your carelessness obliges firmness on my part.
I am obliged to report to the police station every week.
To do (someone) a service or favour (hence, originally, creating an obligation).
He obliged me by not parking his car in the drive.
The singer obliged(us) with an encore.
To cause somebody to feel indebted.
I am much obliged to you for your recent help.
Where this word comes from
From Middle English obligen, from Old French obligier, obliger, from Latin obligō, obligāre, from ob- + ligō. Doublet of obligate, taken straight from Latin.
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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.