All 9 Uses of
compel
in
The Good Earth
- Two were men from the village with whom Wang Lung exchanged seed and labor at harvest time, and one was his next door neighbor, Ching, a small, quiet man, ever unwilling to speak unless he were compelled to it.†
Chpt 1
- In this light he was suddenly shy when he found himself alone with the woman and he was compelled to remind himself, "There is this woman of mine.†
Chpt 1
- "I am compelled to lend it to my uncle," he replied shortly.†
Chpt 7 *
- Wang Lung at first began to tell him that he was too new at it to run, but the old man was deaf, for he heard nothing of what Wang Lung said, only motioning to him tranquilly to lower the shafts and let him step in, and Wang Lung obeyed, not knowing what else to do, and feeling compelled to it by the deafness of the old man and by his well-dressed and learned looks.†
Chpt 11
- He was compelled to build yet another room to the house to store his harvests in, or they would not have had space to walk in the house.†
Chpt 17
- He was compelled by his restlessness to see or to hear something new.†
Chpt 18
- No, Wang Lung would not pretend it was anything out of the common that he had a son like this, although when the lad said sharply as he read, "Here is a letter that has the wood radical when it should have the water radical," Wang Lung's heart was fit to burst with pride, so that he was compelled to turn aside and cough and spit upon the floor to save himself.†
Chpt 22
- It was true that when he himself was a lad there was no time for melancholy, for he had to be up at dawn for the ox and out with the plow and the hoe and at harvest he must needs work until his back broke, and if he wept he could weep for no one heard him, and he could not run away as his son ran away from school, for if he did there was nothing for him to eat on return, and so he was compelled to labor.†
Chpt 22
- But Wang Lung compelled him for three days.†
Chpt 29
Definition:
-
(compel) to force someone to do something
or more rarely:
to convince someone to do something