Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun Compulsory enrollment, especially for the armed forces; draft.
  • noun A monetary payment exacted by a government in wartime.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun An enrolling or registering.
  • noun Specifically A compulsory enrolment by lot or selection of suitable men for military or naval service.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun An enrolling or registering.
  • noun A compulsory enrollment of men for military or naval service; a draft.
  • adjective Belonging to, or of the nature of, a conspiration.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun involuntary labor, especially military service, demanded by some established authority

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun compulsory military service

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Latin cōnscrīptiō ("levying of troops").

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Examples

  • Another was sentenced to ten years in prison for delivering speeches in which he called conscription unconstitutional.

    Savage Peace Ann Hagedorn 2007

  • Another was sentenced to ten years in prison for delivering speeches in which he called conscription unconstitutional.

    Savage Peace Ann Hagedorn 2007

  • Another was sentenced to ten years in prison for delivering speeches in which he called conscription unconstitutional.

    Savage Peace Ann Hagedorn 2007

  • Also, the ancient idea of forcing to people to join your army, i.e. conscription, is an advanced technology that allows you to form units of guys with repeating rifles.

    Matthew Yglesias » The Fine Art of Negotiating 2010

  • Moyers knows conscription is the quickest way to initiate the fundamental changes to foreign policy needed to end the war.

    And, in the interest of point/counterpoint… « Dating Jesus 2009

  • Involuntary conscription is the answer to their daily pain.

    Archive 2007-10-01 ____Maggie 2007

  • Perhaps an under-motivated, under-trained army of the sort that would result from conscription is exactly what this country needs.

    Matthew Yglesias » Serve the Servants 2007

  • Involuntary conscription is the answer to their daily pain.

    A Long Way Gone (copy) ____Maggie 2007

  • A practical and political form of opposition to conscription is the proposal, first put forward, so far as I know, by an American woman,

    Emily Greene Balch - Nobel Lecture 1946

  • The operational principle in conscription, as the vile Bernard Baruch, head of the Wilson Junta’s War Industries Board, pointed out in August 1918, is that every man’s life is at the call of the nation and so must be every man’s property ….

    When all else fails, try it again « Antiwar.com Blog 2009

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