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compel
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  • I was compelled to deliver every cent of that money to Master Hugh.   (source)
  • They are constantly compelled to resort to it.   (source)
  • 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)
  • For some reason I felt compelled to help her, even though I knew I shouldn't.†   (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)
  • 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)
  • 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)
  • I'm here because I've got this vision of justice that compels me to be a witness.†   (source)
  • "Still," he says, "certain things compel people.†   (source)
  • Now they were compelled by international agreements to warn other nations first.†   (source)
  • Still, each man had admitted kicking the victim, so the jurors felt compelled to declare them guilty of something.†   (source)
  • No law compelled them to take only these rear seats.†   (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)
  • Because one is compelled.†   (source)
  • Mae, we would finally be compelled to be our best selves.†   (source)
  • Then I felt compelled to add, "I wasn't brave enough to give my statement."†   (source)
  • I don't know what compelled me to tell the truth in the first place.†   (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)
  • "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)
  • 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)
  • He bought loyalty with gold, and compelled obedience with his name.†   (source)
  • To compel this ending.†   (source)
  • I was compelled, she wanted to say, but didn't.†   (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)
  • A strange sense of duty, not to mention a powerful curiosity, compelled him to join.†   (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)
  • 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)
  • Also, I feel compelled to say that your face is beautiful to me.†   (source)
  • He felt afraid — that cold lump in his stomach was back again — but he also felt compelled to listen.†   (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)
  • Something he had not known was there rose in him and compelled him to make the point, loudly and again.†   (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)
  • She was compelled to run, yet her legs had melted beneath her.†   (source)
  • They move through the maze, SCORPIUS and ALBUS being compelled by DELPHI.†   (source)
  • Mother will not set foot upon it but unfortunately I was compelled.†   (source)
  • By the time of the Shanghai crash, the Korean president, Kim Dae-jung, felt compelled to speak up.†   (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)
  • I felt compelled to give myself reasons why I hated Kim: She was a Goody Two-shoes.†   (source)
  • When the dragon was a fortnight old, Eragon was compelled to let it roam free because it needed so much food.†   (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)
  • Why do I feel so compelled to follow her map?†   (source)
  • Mother could certainly have compelled Hatsumomo to be my older sister—not only because Hatsumomo lived in our okiya, but also because she had so few kimono of her own and was dependent on the okiya's collection.†   (source)
  • It was in this town that I'd been compelled to spend a month every summer until I was fourteen.†   (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)
  • That was the question I felt compelled to address.†   (source)
  • Compelled belief is no belief at all.†   (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)
  • I must have looked confused because Aunt Prue felt compelled to elaborate.†   (source)
  • Burnham hoped this second report would at last compel a decision.†   (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 ...TO SUBMIT TO THEM IN SILENCE, AND CONCEAL THEM FROM OBSERVATION.†   (source)
  • Saeed and Nadia knew what the buildup to conflict felt like, and so the feeling that hung over London 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)
  • 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)
  • 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)
  • 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)
  • It's not gray," Clary felt compelled to point out.†   (source)
  • He compelled Michael to imagine the valley, and the surrounding artillery.†   (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)
  • We weren't compelled to go to church or anything, and to this day the family are not churchgoers.†   (source)
  • The Y was essentially telling Luma that she was compelled to volunteer—"like they own me," she fumed.†   (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 begged me to be still, but the fever compelled me to repeat my awful tale over and over.†   (source)
  • She said a ruler must learn to persuade and not to compel.†   (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)
  • I don't want to ask, but manners compel me.†   (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)
  • 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)
  • 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)
  • When times are bad, people feel compelled to overeat.†   (source)
  • Then Joe Palleni (assistant principal) felt compelled to suspend him for a bit, something I never believe is productive.†   (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)
  • The group concluded that OSHA should become just an information clearinghouse without the authority to impose fines or compel security measures.†   (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)
  • She could break him: for, to match her will, he would be compelled to descend to stratagems far beneath him.†   (source)
  • The Nisei will be "compelled" (news report) to volunteer in Labor Gangs.†   (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)
  • Once inside, I felt compelled to retrieve my note, checking to be sure I had, in fact, written on it.†   (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)
  • But how would she feel if she were compelled to hustle her living on the streets?†   (source)
  • If you felt compelled to anyway, that was your problem, not mine.†   (source)
  • Although you've revealed your shortcomings to me, I feel compelled to no such frankness.†   (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)
  • 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)
  • They have seized the public revenue, and assumed to themselves legislative, executive, and judicial powers, which they already exercise in the most arbitrary manner....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)
  • 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)
  • It also compelled people to think of him as a friend right away.†   (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)
  • Yossarian watched him tinkering and felt certain he would be compelled to murder him in cold blood if he did not stop.†   (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)
  • And gave herself an opportunity to take a real look at the town she'd been compelled to visit.†   (source)
  • I am compelled to tell you, my good lady, that this is all sleight of hand.†   (source)
  • Whether compelled by some insidious lure in the monster's call or driven by mere terror, Mina responded in kind.†   (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 so much chatter about the case that the foreman, Nevin Dark, felt compelled to remind them that His Honor frowned on what they were doing.†   (source)
  • He had not meant to be the first to speak, but something in the other's silence compelled him.†   (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)
  • "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)
  • People felt compelled to take sides.†   (source)
  • It was as if the tale, once embarked upon, compelled her.†   (source)
  • For some reason I feel compelled to feed you.†   (source)
  • It is this need that compels him to treat me with respect and dignity, no matter what the truth of our union be.†   (source)
  • The emotion that had compelled Rachelle swallowed her.†   (source)
  • Struggling to keep upright on my hands and knees, I compelled myself forward.†   (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)
  • You can come willingly to the amphitheater, or I can compel you.†   (source)
  • You may keep it to yourself or feel compelled to express your outrage at every opportunity.†   (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)
  • But something compelled me to hear my own doom spelled out.†   (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)
  • 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)
  • 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)
  • 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)
  • Here, I believed, was a sufficient threat that compelled us to join hands with our Indian and Communist colleagues.†   (source)
  • I think under normal circumstances I would have turned and left, but something compelled me to investigate.†   (source)
  • But he admired those who worked hard, and for this alone, he felt compelled to reward them.†   (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)
  • But if by 'brainwashing' you mean could I be compelled to surrender our secrets, the answer is an unmodified negative.†   (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)
  • Finally he felt compelled to ask Giannini to come in for an informal chat.†   (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)
  • But as I listened to the sound of Mother's pleading voice, something in her tone compelled me to go see her.†   (source)
  • But the law compels you to volunteer a defense!†   (source)
  • On my daily walks I've recognized how to parent my children through difficult situations, been prompted to call a friend I hadn't heard from in a while, and felt compelled to reach out to strangers—who soon became my friends.†   (source)
  • I felt compelled to hang about in order not to miss the announcement when it should come.†   (source)
  • But Drizzt had traveled right through the night and was compelled to continue.†   (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)
  • 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)
  • His secret love for John compels him to hold on to her body for horrible acts of mutilation and necrophilia.†   (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)
  • He simply said, quietly, "There is something so awesome about death, baby girl, people feel compelled to address it in some way.†   (source)
  • Usually a winter task, they had been compelled, by a variety of circumstances, to perform the deed in spring.†   (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)
  • 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)
  • Ewell reported that Johnson was being compelled to fall back from the trenches he had won the night before.†   (source)
  • The appearances give me an opportunity to preach the gospel, which I feel compelled to do.†   (source)
  • Several times he's been compelled to borrow money from other nations.†   (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)
  • If I'd still been there, Kyle wouldn't have felt compelled to live a lie for so long.†   (source)
  • But once inside, each is compelled to lay bare its most cherished sources and methods for the other to see.†   (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)
  • 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)
  • 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)
  • 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)
  • 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)
  • We haven't the heart for much else, and so many times she simply cannot be compelled.†   (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)
  • 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)
  • I'll have created a precedent that will compel Karellen to take some action.†   (source)
  • Randy drove on, although at reduced speed, for sight of a fatal accident always compels temporary caution.†   (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)
  • 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)
  • Youmust learn that there are times when a man in public life is compelled to rise above his principles.†   (source)
  • But Reich was subconsciously compelled to misunderstand the message.†   (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)
  • She compelled obedience from him,   (source)
  • Once again, however, he had a close call; and once, suspecting danger, he compelled the dog to go on in front.   (source)
  • To remedy this, he ate as fast as they; and, so greatly did hunger compel him, he was not above taking what did not belong to him.   (source)
    compel = drive
  • The two men were compelled to run back to save the grub, upon which the huskies returned to the attack on the team.   (source)
    compelled = forced
  • But a cold snap was on, the thermometer registering fifty below zero, and each time he broke through he was compelled for very life to build a fire and dry his garments.   (source)
  • At their backs rose a perpendicular wall of rock, and Perrault and Francois were compelled to make their fire and spread their sleeping robes on the ice of the lake itself.   (source)
  • Pike, who pulled at Buck's heels, and who never put an ounce more of his weight against the breast-band than he was compelled to do, was swiftly and repeatedly shaken for loafing; and ere the first day was done he was pulling more than ever before in his life.   (source)
  • You see why we are compelled to take justice into our own hands!†   (source)
    compelled = forced; or (more rarely) convinced
  • He had felt compelled to stay by a power beyond his own reckoning.†   (source)
  • Every time she blinked, he felt compelled to look at her.†   (source)
  • Suddenly, Reynie felt compelled to grab Kate's hand.†   (source)
  • "Also, all the air would leave," Johanssen felt compelled to add.†   (source)
  • That compelled the audience to look into themselves for something more genuine and true.†   (source)
  • Neither sleet nor rain nor a half inch of snow will compel me to dress like a lumberjack.†   (source)
  • She compelled herself to remember, to see visions of the mayor and his wife.†   (source)
  • I'll creep up and stab—" The mask compelled them.†   (source)
  • But I don't think any force on earth could have compelled Hatsumomo to train me properly.†   (source)
  • Men coming round from amputations seemed compelled to make terrible jokes.†   (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)
  • It was designed to compel us to reassess our commitment.†   (source)
  • My oath of fealty compels me to ensure the safety of Nasuada and the Varden.†   (source)
  • I must have looked confused, because Macon felt compelled to elaborate.†   (source)
  • "Time compels me," the Reverend Mother said within the awareness.†   (source)
  • "You three go on," said Reynie, who felt strangely compelled to see the list up close.†   (source)
  • I was compelled to obey this Mianaai, in order to lead her to believe that she did indeed compel me.†   (source)
  • I cannot fathom how you managed it," Eragon felt compelled to reply: "I caught him by surprise."†   (source)
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