Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun The capacity to do work or cause physical change; energy, strength, or active power.
- noun Power made operative against resistance; exertion.
- noun The use of physical power or violence to compel or restrain.
- noun Intellectual power or vigor, especially as conveyed in writing or speech.
- noun Moral strength.
- noun A capacity for affecting the mind or behavior; efficacy.
- noun One that possesses such capacity.
- noun A body of persons or other resources organized or available for a certain purpose.
- noun A person or group capable of influential action.
- noun Military strength.
- noun A unit of a nation's military personnel, especially one deployed into combat.
- noun A vector quantity that tends to produce an acceleration of a body in the direction of its application. Newton's second law of motion states that a free body accelerates in the direction of the applied force and that its acceleration is directly proportional to the force and inversely proportional to its mass.
- noun Baseball A force play.
- transitive verb To compel through pressure or necessity.
- transitive verb To gain by the use of force or coercion.
- transitive verb To move or effect against resistance or inertia.
- transitive verb To inflict or impose relentlessly.
- transitive verb To put undue strain on.
- transitive verb To increase or accelerate (a pace, for example) to the maximum.
- transitive verb To produce with effort and against one's will.
- transitive verb To use (language) with obvious lack of ease and naturalness.
- transitive verb To move, open, or clear by force.
- transitive verb To break down or open by force.
- transitive verb To rape.
- transitive verb To induce change in (a complex system) by changing one of its parameters.
- transitive verb Botany To cause to grow or mature by artificially accelerating normal processes.
- transitive verb To put (a runner) out on a force play.
- transitive verb To allow (a run) to be scored by walking a batter when the bases are loaded.
- transitive verb Games To cause an opponent to play (a particular card).
- idiom (force (oneself) on/upon) To rape.
- idiom (force (someone's) hand) To force to act or speak prematurely or unwillingly.
- idiom (in force) In full strength; in large numbers.
- idiom (in force) In effect; operative.
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun A waterfall.
- To clip or shear, as the beard or wool. In particular
- To clip off the upper and more hairy part of (wool), for export: a practice forbidden by stat.
- To stuff; farce.
- To act effectively upon by force, physical, mental, or moral, in any manner; impel by force; compel; constrain.
- To overcome or overthrow by force; accomplish one's purpose upon or in regard to by force or compulsion; compel to succumb, give way, or yield.
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
Support
Help support Wordnik (and make this page ad-free) by adopting the word force.
Examples
-
In many cases it is desirable to force water considerably above the pump itself, as, for instance, in the fire hose; under such circumstances a type of pump is employed which has received the name of _force pump_.
General Science Bertha M. Clark
-
Yet to force any of our principles upon her attention when she is in a hostile mood -- or to _force_ them, indeed, in any mood -- is to invite just this attitude.
Study of Child Life Marion Foster Washburne
-
The dynamical force, that which produces motion, is the centripetal force, drawing the body continually from the tangential direction, toward the center; and what is termed centrifugal force is merely the resistance which the body opposes to this deflection, _precisely like any other resistance to a force_.
Scientific American Supplement, No. 531, March 6, 1886 Various
-
At present I will proceed to consider the second of the forces, or manifestations of force, which are developed in moving bodies -- _centrifugal force_.
Scientific American Supplement, No. 531, March 6, 1886 Various
-
What we want to do is to increase the attractive force, in order to prevent this tangential motion -- to increase the _force of gravity_.
-
And, further, if it be true that the human will is a physical energy, we have here the discovery of a _new force_ -- a force just as new to science as magnetism or electricity -- and vastly more interesting, since it is intimately associated with all of us, and subject to our direction, guidance, and command -- a force for us to wield and manipulate -- for weal or woe!
The Problems of Psychical Research Experiments and Theories in the Realm of the Supernormal Hereward Carrington 1919
-
And now we force him -- _force_ him into these intimate relations.
Marcella Humphry Ward 1885
-
The great man concentrates his force with a wave of his hand for the _tour de force_ of the year, the despatch of the Hielant train.
Kate Carnegie and Those Ministers Ian Maclaren 1878
-
Regiment by a detachment of _equal force_ of the Eleventh Regiment, this force of _one company_ being now stationed at the Temiscouata post, as it _always has been_, for the necessary purpose of protecting the stores and accommodations provided for the use of Her Majesty's troops who may be required, as heretofore, to march by that route to and from the
A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents Volume 3, part 2: Martin Van Buren 1878
-
It would appear that heat, light, electricity, sound, the cathode rays, and all other forms of force in nature are probably variations, and as it were limited expressions and manifestations, of _the one supreme force_ that supports the constitution of the physical universe; and that one supreme force is
Notable Events of the Nineteenth Century Great Deeds of Men and Nations and the Progress of the World Various 1870
chained_bear commented on the word force
"And Wilson gave no quarter. To open a Liberty Loan drive, Wilson demanded, 'Force! Force to the utmost! Force without stint or limit! the righteous and triumphant Force which shall make Right the law of the world, and cast every selfish dominion down in the dust.'"
—John M. Barry, The Great Influenza (NY: Penguin Books, 2004), 128
February 14, 2009