All 4 Uses of
compel
in
Winesburg, Ohio - by Sherwood Anderson
- In the path at the side of the road they were compelled to walk one behind the other.†
Chpt 6 *compelled = forced; or (more rarely) convinced
- The shell of the circumstances of his life was broken and he was compelled to start forth.†
Chpt 7
- The excited man breathed into his face, peered into his eyes, pounded upon his chest with a shaking forefinger, demanded, compelled attention.†
Chpt 8
- In reality she was the most eagerly passionate soul among them, and more than once, in the five years since she had come back from her travels to settle in Winesburg and become a school teacher, had been compelled to go out of the house and walk half through the night fighting out some battle raging within.†
Chpt 14
Definition:
to force someone to do something
or more rarely:
to convince someone to do something
or more rarely:
to convince someone to do something
Most typically, compel describes an external influence forcing someone to do something, but it can also describe being driven by an internal desire.