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compel
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show 188 more with this conextual meaning
  • The Carthaginians, reduced to extreme necessity, were compelled to come to terms with Agathocles,   (source)
  • Taking his time, he sniffed his way around the cell, researching the damp cement walls, the exposed pipes, and the sink, all the while compelled to ignore her.†   (source)
  • Although something inside told her that this was a crime—after all, her three books were the most precious items she owned—she was compelled to see the thing lit.†   (source)
  • Perhaps that's why Hayden feels compelled to talk.†   (source)
  • "NEMO 1934," he scrawled, no doubt moved by the same impulse that compelled Chris McCandless to inscribe "Alexander Supertramp/May 1992" on the wall of the Sushana bus, an impulse not so different, perhaps, from that which inspired the Anasazi to embellish the rock with their own now-indecipherable symbols.†   (source)
  • Reading it again, however, he realized that it didn't compel him to be rude; it simply allowed him the option.†   (source)
  • I also feel compelled to say that it is breathtakingly naive to imagine creating a breed of dog in the first place.†   (source)
  • In spite of my anger, there was something in him that compelled.†   (source)
  • Yet I was a curious kid, and the deeper I immersed myself in evangelical theology, the more I felt compelled to mistrust many sectors of society.†   (source)
  • For the first time, they were compelled to entrust the wellbeing of their family to others.†   (source)
  • For some reason I felt compelled to help her, even though I knew I shouldn't.†   (source)
  • I'm here because I've got this vision of justice that compels me to be a witness.†   (source)
  • A strange sense of duty, not to mention a powerful curiosity, compelled him to join.†   (source)
  • Still, each man had admitted kicking the victim, so the jurors felt compelled to declare them guilty of something.†   (source)
  • Because one is compelled.†   (source)
  • They tugged at my clothes, trying to pull me back, but I felt compelled to walk forward to the very edge of the chasm.†   (source)
  • "And," I felt compelled to continue, "everyone knows how we white people feel, the glorified Mammy figure who dedicates her whole life to a white family.†   (source)
  • Harry was angry with the other two for siding with McGonagall; nevertheless, he felt compelled to join in once they started discussing what had happened.†   (source)
  • All the way down the center aisle, Barb Wiggin kept the "pillar of light" on us; what possible force could have compelled her to do that?†   (source)
  • I whisper back, because something in the conspiracy compels it, "Bodies?"†   (source)
  • To compel this ending.†   (source)
  • Then I felt compelled to add, "I wasn't brave enough to give my statement."†   (source)
  • "Still," he says, "certain things compel people.†   (source)
  • And I felt compelled to write the following on an index card: You need to have a dermatologist perform a punch biopsy on the mole (nevus) on the back of your neck If it is not too much of an invasion of your privacy, I would very much like to look at the pathology report.†   (source)
  • At the age of eleven she wrote her first story—a foolish affair, imitative of half a dozen folktales and lacking, she realized later, that vital knowingness about the ways of the world which compels a reader's respect.†   (source)
  • He felt afraid — that cold lump in his stomach was back again — but he also felt compelled to listen.†   (source)
  • Now they were compelled by international agreements to warn other nations first.†   (source)
  • And her laments always compel Harold to explain to my mother in simple terms: "Well, you see, it's the details that cost so much.†   (source)
  • I don't want to ask, but manners compel me.†   (source)
  • Dressing rather shakily, Kit was compelled to ask Mercy's assistance with the buttons down her back, and was shocked when her older cousin suddenly bent double in a violent fit of coughing.†   (source)
  • "We'll get the word out, of course, but she can't be compelled to come home; you shouldn't necessarily expect her back under your roof in the near future."†   (source)
  • By the time of the Shanghai crash, the Korean president, Kim Dae-jung, felt compelled to speak up.†   (source)
  • He bought loyalty with gold, and compelled obedience with his name.†   (source)
  • She was compelled to run, yet her legs had melted beneath her.†   (source)
  • Something he had not known was there rose in him and compelled him to make the point, loudly and again.†   (source)
  • SHE IS BOUND BY TIES FROM WHICH NOTHING BUT DEATH CAN RELEASE HER, AND WHATEVER HER SUFFERING AND HER WRONGS IS COMPELLED BY DELICACY AND A REGARD FOR PERSONAL REPUTATION ….†   (source)
  • I was compelled, she wanted to say, but didn't.†   (source)
  • His dimples are taunting me and I have to force myself to look directly into his eyes or I might be compelled to do something that would be grounds for suspension.†   (source)
  • Mother will not set foot upon it but unfortunately I was compelled.†   (source)
  • Also, I feel compelled to say that your face is beautiful to me.†   (source)
  • Being in Berkeley, home to many fine restaurants, I felt compelled to add a few over-the-top menu flourishes: The last item was one of Angelo's homemade wines.†   (source)
  • I don't really know what compelled me out of the house, why I felt like I had to prove Hana wrong about something, and I'm trying to ignore the idea—way more disturbing than anything else—that my argument with Hana was just an excuse.†   (source)
  • She is compelled to him.†   (source)
  • I don't know what compelled me to tell the truth in the first place.†   (source)
  • Struggling to keep upright on my hands and knees, I compelled myself forward.†   (source)
  • When forgotten people feel compelled to riot in Los Angeles, we share their pain through our TV screens, and their ravages impact our emotional and economic health.†   (source)
  • When the dragon was a fortnight old, Eragon was compelled to let it roam free because it needed so much food.†   (source)
  • It was in this town that I'd been compelled to spend a month every summer until I was fourteen.†   (source)
  • He compelled Michael to imagine the valley, and the surrounding artillery.†   (source)
  • We weren't compelled to go to church or anything, and to this day the family are not churchgoers.†   (source)
  • Why do I feel so compelled to follow her map?†   (source)
  • Burnham hoped this second report would at last compel a decision.†   (source)
  • Compelled belief is no belief at all.†   (source)
  • Mae, we would finally be compelled to be our best selves.†   (source)
  • The group concluded that OSHA should become just an information clearinghouse without the authority to impose fines or compel security measures.†   (source)
  • I felt compelled to give myself reasons why I hated Kim: She was a Goody Two-shoes.†   (source)
  • I can only take responsibility for the truths I felt compelled to reveal, with the necessary changes in facts and names to protect the innocent and the guilty.†   (source)
  • I'm willing to signyours, Mark, on the grounds that you don't feel compelled to stand up for your convictions, and I don't want it to appear as if the school is challenging your religious beliefs.†   (source)
  • She is becoming a ghostly outline, a hollow shell, that he feels compelled to fill with bogus details and fabricated character traits, as though false memories are better than none at all.†   (source)
  • When times are bad, people feel compelled to overeat.†   (source)
  • It's not gray," Clary felt compelled to point out.†   (source)
  • And even when I had assured myself I was on the right road, I felt compelled to stop the car a moment to take stock, as it were.†   (source)
  • That was the question I felt compelled to address.†   (source)
  • Then Joe Palleni (assistant principal) felt compelled to suspend him for a bit, something I never believe is productive.†   (source)
  • Hong, born in Taiwan, was a Juilliard student, too, and Nathaniel feels compelled to admit he didn't make it all the way through.†   (source)
  • And so it was that he felt compelled to discover the identity of the mistress of violation in whose panther's instincts he might find the cure for his misfortune.†   (source)
  • She said a ruler must learn to persuade and not to compel.†   (source)
  • Up to now Phaedrus had been compelled by the academic system to say what he wanted, even though he knew that this forced students to conform to artificial forms that destroyed their own creativity.†   (source)
  • No law compelled them to take only these rear seats.†   (source)
  • Galileo formulated it thus: A body remains in the state which it is in, at rest or in motion, as long as no external force compels it to change its state.†   (source)
  • …in those days was not new to them, and they faced it not with bravery, exactly, and not with panic either, not mostly, but instead with a resignation shot through with moments of tension, with tension ebbing and flowing, and when the tension receded there was calm, the calm that is called the calm before the storm, but is in reality the foundation of a human life, waiting there for us between the steps of our march to our mortality, when we are compelled to pause and not act but be.†   (source)
  • But I don't think any force on earth could have compelled Hatsumomo to train me properly.†   (source)
  • And gave herself an opportunity to take a real look at the town she'd been compelled to visit.†   (source)
  • He was the sort of person who didn't feel compelled to tell you all his thoughts, but she sensed that if he did tell you some, if he let you in, and you made fun of him, it would be a long time before he'd open up again.†   (source)
  • One of the first things we did together was scale the Ferris wheel, but that time it was me, not him, who compelled us to climb higher.†   (source)
  • But how would she feel if she were compelled to hustle her living on the streets?†   (source)
  • She could break him: for, to match her will, he would be compelled to descend to stratagems far beneath him.†   (source)
  • Here, I believed, was a sufficient threat that compelled us to join hands with our Indian and Communist colleagues.†   (source)
  • You can come willingly to the amphitheater, or I can compel you.†   (source)
  • He leans down and glares so hard at Billy that Billy feels compelled to stutter out that he isn't the buh-buh-buh-bull goose loony yet, though he's next in luh-luh-line for the job.†   (source)
  • The Y was essentially telling Luma that she was compelled to volunteer—"like they own me," she fumed.†   (source)
  • "These tulips are so beautiful," he began, but he was unable to explain himself, unable to put into words why these images compelled him so.†   (source)
  • He had not meant to be the first to speak, but something in the other's silence compelled him.†   (source)
  • The rosebushes were scratching intently at the windows, but I directed his focus to the sheet of paper waiting there for him, and compelled him to pick up the pen.†   (source)
  • That was even before another dressing down in front of a patron, this time from Bethany, who felt compelled to point out-twice-that, to her trained ear, I'd mispronounced Albert Camus' name while directing a sullen summer school student to the French literature section.†   (source)
  • It was too painful, I thought, for Levy and others (especially the middle-class prisoners) to admit that they had been classed as undesirables, compelled against their will into containment, and forced into scarcity without even the dignity of chosen austerity.†   (source)
  • There was an investigative side to Skip Tyler's character, and once he was onto something, his psyche compelled him to run it down.†   (source)
  • While other riders dragged themselves to the barn to gallop horses at 4:00 A.M. seven days a week, compelled by a biting fear that their skills would wane or trainers would forget them, Woolf slept in, rarely showing up at the track before noon.†   (source)
  • I am compelled to tell you, my good lady, that this is all sleight of hand.†   (source)
  • What in the world compelled me to bring Adam to a bar in Little Rock a couple of weeks out of drug rehab?†   (source)
  • 'Roads,' " she wrote, adding sarcastic quotation marks, "are constructed with great toil and expense, as nature compels the road-maker to follow her lead, and carry his track along the narrow valleys, ravines, gorges, and chasms which she has marked out for him.†   (source)
  • Although you've revealed your shortcomings to me, I feel compelled to no such frankness.†   (source)
  • No one wants to invest you with a power of any kind, gunslinger; it is simply in you, and I am compelled to tell you, partly because of the sacrifice of the boy, and partly because it is the law; the natural law of things.†   (source)
  • People felt compelled to take sides.†   (source)
  • On the news they'd said that Chris had been mauled by an animal, so I already knew the answer to the question, but I felt compelled to ask.†   (source)
  • "I'll not argue with you, old friend," said the knight, nodding back at Bert, "but one might say I was as compelled as all the rest."†   (source)
  • The Nisei will be "compelled" (news report) to volunteer in Labor Gangs.†   (source)
  • I'd felt compelled to enter, but I had pushed this out of my mind, breaking loose from the fascination of the open doors, the throng of people making one voice.†   (source)
  • Yossarian watched him tinkering and felt certain he would be compelled to murder him in cold blood if he did not stop.†   (source)
  • I must have looked confused because Aunt Prue felt compelled to elaborate.†   (source)
  • The hit of heroin is plenty to smooth him out, to compel his whole being into an exhale but-he hopes-not more than enough.†   (source)
  • Morbid curiosity compelled me to peek at the underside of his visible half, which earned me a crystal-clear view of the inner workings of his bowels.†   (source)
  • She begged me to be still, but the fever compelled me to repeat my awful tale over and over.†   (source)
  • And now that he was at home with his dear ones, he felt compelled to share his overwhelming joy, a joy of return and rebirth.†   (source)
  • I'm sitting blankly, wondering if I can summon the energy to stand up again, when the group of Japanese tourists comes into the gallery, and I feel compelled to get to my feet and pretend I'm looking at something.†   (source)
  • Once inside, I felt compelled to retrieve my note, checking to be sure I had, in fact, written on it.†   (source)
  • I kept up the scowl, thankful that not once in my whole life had anyone felt compelled to tell me not to ruin my pretty face like that.†   (source)
  • The emotion that had compelled Rachelle swallowed her.†   (source)
  • Whereupon Reb Saunders further stated that this was his son's wish, that he, as a father, respected his son's soul and mind—in that order, according to what Danny later told me—-that his son had every intention of remaining an observer of the Commandments, and that, therefore, he felt compelled to give his son his blessing.†   (source)
  • For reasons no one would ever understand, Rufus Buckley felt compelled to say something.†   (source)
  • But he admired those who worked hard, and for this alone, he felt compelled to reward them.†   (source)
  • These essays are best when the writer is compelled to write, not because he wants to give advice, but because he has something to figure out for himself.†   (source)
  • But in that case, she did compel me.†   (source)
  • He clambered out and almost ran across the road to the yard, as though compelled by some pressing urgency which I could not understand.†   (source)
  • And although many of these unhappy people may still retain their loyalty …. the torrent of violence has been strong enough to compel their acquiescence till a sufficient force shall appear to support them.†   (source)
  • For some reason I feel compelled to feed you.†   (source)
  • I interviewed the mayor of Montgomery, Emory Folmar, who was so conservative that he compelled black people to vote in droves for George Wallace.†   (source)
  • Finally he felt compelled to ask Giannini to come in for an informal chat.†   (source)
  • It was as if the tale, once embarked upon, compelled her.†   (source)
  • But as I listened to the sound of Mother's pleading voice, something in her tone compelled me to go see her.†   (source)
  • They feared that the Frenchman's restless style might compel her to rashness, but Celia hid her music to La Soirée dans Grenade and played it incessantly while Jorge traveled.†   (source)
  • Sometimes he let them go, but sometimes he was compelled to follow, to see their faces, to say, "Wait for me, wait, I'm coming with you."†   (source)
  • But something compelled me to hear my own doom spelled out.†   (source)
  • I felt compelled to hang about in order not to miss the announcement when it should come.†   (source)
  • He simply said, quietly, "There is something so awesome about death, baby girl, people feel compelled to address it in some way.†   (source)
  • From what Max could tell, the animal wasn't injured; some insidious force or perhaps sheer horror had compelled the horse to succumb, to lie still and wait for the demon to devour it.†   (source)
  • It also compelled people to think of him as a friend right away.†   (source)
  • But the law compels you to volunteer a defense!†   (source)
  • You may keep it to yourself or feel compelled to express your outrage at every opportunity.†   (source)
  • I think under normal circumstances I would have turned and left, but something compelled me to investigate.†   (source)
  • When court was back in session, Hungerford declared that his chents would not testify at this point in time, nor were they compelled to do so by law.†   (source)
  • His secret love for John compels him to hold on to her body for horrible acts of mutilation and necrophilia.†   (source)
  • If you were what you say you were, and afraid of Carlos-and heaven knows you should be-Paris would be the last place on earth you'd feel compelled to go to.†   (source)
  • Like an animal compelled by the seasons to engage in a course of behavior that it cannot understand, I feel directed to shed my skin, to dance, to burrow in the dirt, to behave like a fool.†   (source)
  • They took slavery for granted as part of the southern way of life for which they fought, and did not feel compelled to discuss it.†   (source)
  • Why, then, were they taking to their heels in such numbers that it was necessary to pass a law to compel them to enjoy the benefits they derived from slavery?†   (source)
  • Several times he's been compelled to borrow money from other nations.†   (source)
  • But Drizzt had traveled right through the night and was compelled to continue.†   (source)
  • Ewell reported that Johnson was being compelled to fall back from the trenches he had won the night before.†   (source)
  • Before I could get my legs moving, I heard myself screaming for it to stop, and then I backed up the hill, feet slipping as I grabbed the tall grass and pulled myself up, all the while begging my father to make them stop, the screams so shrill I felt I needed to cover my ears, and though I didn't want to see, I felt compelled to look.†   (source)
  • The appearances give me an opportunity to preach the gospel, which I feel compelled to do.†   (source)
  • Usually a winter task, they had been compelled, by a variety of circumstances, to perform the deed in spring.†   (source)
  • But if by 'brainwashing' you mean could I be compelled to surrender our secrets, the answer is an unmodified negative.†   (source)
  • An unjust law is a code that a numerical or power majority group compels a minority group to obey but does not make binding on itself.†   (source)
  • But once inside, each is compelled to lay bare its most cherished sources and methods for the other to see.†   (source)
  • All of the people that we had relationships with at Browning had recently lost their jobs or moved on for one reason or another, and we found ourselves without the connection that might have compelled us to stay.†   (source)
  • Now one of the cardinal tenets of biology is that the observer must never allow his attention to be distracted; but honesty compels me to admit that under the present circumstances I found it difficult to maintain an attitude of correct scientific concentration.†   (source)
  • If I'd still been there, Kyle wouldn't have felt compelled to live a lie for so long.†   (source)
  • Randy drove on, although at reduced speed, for sight of a fatal accident always compels temporary caution.†   (source)
  • I'll have created a precedent that will compel Karellen to take some action.†   (source)
  • Not like my father, who had also lived beneath the Russians but hated them so much that he refused to speak that language unless he was compelled to.†   (source)
  • We haven't the heart for much else, and so many times she simply cannot be compelled.†   (source)
  • It really is the only thing I can remember she ever said about Grandma Welty, though she did feel often compelled to repeat it, and never said anything different after the old lady died.†   (source)
  • She was being compelled to sin, she told him.†   (source)
  • But because the society had corroded Mrs. Brown's image of the black man, I did not feel sufficiently compelled to allow Mrs. Brown to infect my students with her malady.†   (source)
  • More than once, at night, outside a bar or little dance hall, I saw what looked like a drunken pushing and shoving, a brawl with slaps, turn to methodical murder, as though the first wound and the first spurt of blood had made the victim something less than a man, and compelled the wounder to take the act of destruction to the end.†   (source)
  • Was he another of them, this Sunlight Man--called, driven--spooked, more like--a man compelled to speak out, having nothing to say?†   (source)
  • He had seen it, even in men who had undergone a complete ideological reversal, who in the secret hours of the night had found a new creed, and alone, compelled by the internal power of their convictions, had betrayed their calling, their families, their countries.†   (source)
  • The archetype that is formed in every child for life and seems for ever after to be his inward face, his personality, awoke in him in its full primordial strength, and compelled nature, the forest, the afterglow, and everything else visible to be transfigured into a similarly primordial and all-embracing likeness of a girl.†   (source)
  • Youmust learn that there are times when a man in public life is compelled to rise above his principles.†   (source)
  • But now we can no longer risk emergency improvisation of national defense; we have been compelled to create a permanent armaments industry of vast proportions.†   (source)
  • But Reich was subconsciously compelled to misunderstand the message.†   (source)
  • She compelled obedience from him,   (source)
  • Deep in the forest a call was sounding, and as often as he heard this call, mysteriously thrilling and luring, he felt compelled to turn his back upon the fire ... and to plunge into the forest   (source)
  • Every time she blinked, he felt compelled to look at her.†   (source)
  • He had felt compelled to stay by a power beyond his own reckoning.†   (source)
  • "You three go on," said Reynie, who felt strangely compelled to see the list up close.†   (source)
  • "Also, all the air would leave," Johanssen felt compelled to add.†   (source)
  • She compelled herself to remember, to see visions of the mayor and his wife.†   (source)
  • That compelled the audience to look into themselves for something more genuine and true.†   (source)
  • His conclusions were not necessarily those that compelled agreement, sir.†   (source)
  • Neither sleet nor rain nor a half inch of snow will compel me to dress like a lumberjack.†   (source)
  • They move through the maze, SCORPIUS and ALBUS being compelled by DELPHI.†   (source)
  • The other whirling mote swept near, and Jessica compelled herself to touch it.†   (source)
  • Art3mis and Aech had both recently done it, and I felt compelled to catch up.†   (source)
  • Men coming round from amputations seemed compelled to make terrible jokes.†   (source)
  • It was designed to compel us to reassess our commitment.†   (source)
  • "Time compels me," the Reverend Mother said within the awareness.†   (source)
  • Suddenly, Reynie felt compelled to grab Kate's hand.†   (source)
  • His mind kept returning to the phrases he'd been compelled to think: "….†   (source)
  • "If you mean do I suddenly feel compelled to get back together with Alec, no," said Magnus.†   (source)
  • Colin didn't know why, but he felt compelled to keep pushing it.†   (source)
  • "She yielded," Jon felt compelled to say.†   (source)
  • The vampire's bite woke me; now her blood in my veins compels you.†   (source)
  • She didn't intend to stay long, but for some reason, she'd felt compelled to come.†   (source)
  • I don't believe I've ever compelled you to do anything.†   (source)
  • Of all the women he'd known, she was the only one he was compelled to be with, driven to touch.†   (source)
  • Logic, though useful, couldn't compel any more authority.†   (source)
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