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Definition
force to do — possibly by physical, moral or intellectual means- It is better to convince than to coerce.
coerce = force someone to do something
- The legislative bodies debated about what techniques could be used by the CIA to coerce a suspect into talking.
- ..what distinguishes the government from the private sector is the power of coercion. In some ways the most insignificant government bureaucrat — the parking attendant, the IRS examiner, the guy at the Department of Motor Vehicles, the immigration official — has more power over me than the CEO of General Motors or General Electric.Dinesh D'Souza -- Letters to a Young Conservative
- That you didn't kidnap her, for instance, or that the relatives weren't coerced.Barbara Kingsolver -- The Bean Trees
- ...virtue cannot be coerced into people because, unless freely chosen, virtue is meaningless.Jonah Goldberg -- Liberty, Freedom, & the French Maid -- http://www.nationalreview.com/goldberg/goldberg122000.shtml (retrieved 06/29/06)
- The fundamental threat to freedom is power to coerce, be it in the hands of a monarch, a dictator, an oligarchy, or a momentary majority. The preservation of freedom requires the elimination of such concentration of power to the fullest possible extent and dispersal and distribution of whatever power cannot be eliminated – a system of checks and balances.Milton Friedman -- Capitalism and Freedom
- If someone puts a gun to your head to get you to give up your bus seat to an old lady, you are not being virtuous, you are being coerced.Jonah Goldberg -- Liberty, Freedom, & the French Maid -- http://www.nationalreview.com/goldberg/goldberg122000.shtml (retrieved 06/29/06)
- Most important, the net benefit standard does not provide a rationale for a coercive transfer from some people to other people.Cato Handbook for Congress: Regulatory Reform: No Silver Bullet -- http://www.cato.org/pubs/handbook/hb105-30.html (retrieved 06/28/06)
- We also endorse efforts to protect children and their parents from being coerced into administering a controlled substance in order to attend school.2004 Republican Party Platform -- http://www.gop.com/media/2004platform.pdf (retrieved 06/28/06)
- Moreover, the high costs of litigation were a powerful weapon with which to coerce companies to settle claims.Adam C. Pritchard -- Should Congress Repeal Securities Class Action Reform? -- http://www.cato.org/pubs/pas/pa-471es.html (retrieved 06/29/06)
- ...before we, as the state, start to coerce those individuals who we think will prove dangerous to us, we have to be damn sure that they pose an imminent peril to our own safety...Richard A. Epstein -- Skepticism and Freedom (speech based on book) -- http://www.aei.org/publications/pubID.16651,filter.all/pub_detail.asp (retrieved 06/29/06)
- There is no evidence of mental illness, or of coercion on any part.Jojo Moyes -- Me Before You
- And now dear lady, let me remove this unpleasant coercion, which has been placed before your pretty mouth.Baroness Orczy -- The Scarlet Pimpernel
- Their alternative — there was an alternative, of course, since Milo detested coercion and was a vocal champion of freedom of choice — was to starve.Joseph Heller -- Catch-22
- They could coerce some of us into fighting with misinformation, or by appealing to greed—any number of ways.Veronica Roth -- Divergent
- That at least has the dignity of coercion.Margaret Atwood -- The Handmaid's Tale
- For there was then no government by Coercion, but only by Doctrine, and Perswading.Thomas Hobbes -- Leviathan
- Growing rice is too complicated and intricate for a system that requires farmers to be coerced and bullied into going out into the fields each morning.Malcolm Gladwell -- Outliers
- Too persuasive — it was duress, coercion.Stephenie Meyer -- Eclipse
- Is this the still militant old man, standing at the corners of the three kingdoms, on all hands coercing alms of beggars?Herman Melville -- Moby Dick
coerced = forced