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Coerce   /koʊˈərs/   Listen
Coerce

verb
(past & past part. coerced; pres. part. coercing)
1.
To cause to do through pressure or necessity, by physical, moral or intellectual means :.  Synonyms: force, hale, pressure, squeeze.  "He squeezed her for information"






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Coerce" Quotes from Famous Books



... foundations of human society. She therefore would restrain those "restless spirits" who, following Luther, have upheld the "right of every man to interpret the Scriptures for himself." She asserts that it is a wicked error to admit Protestants to equal political privileges with Catholics, and that to coerce them and suppress them is a sacred duty; that it is abominable to permit them to establish educational institutions. Gregory XVI. denounced freedom of conscience as an insane folly, and the freedom of the press a pestilent error, which cannot be ...
— History of the Conflict Between Religion and Science • John William Draper

... willing," he said, "to vote for the very German methods we have condemned. I understand that this provision is not to be used for the protection of American produce or to protect the American supply, but to coerce neutral countries. We stood for neutrality, and urged the nations of the world to support neutrality. Now that we are engaged in war we ought not to coerce other nations and force them ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume VI (of VIII) - History of the European War from Official Sources • Various

... personality would influence the settlement there; and the session of 1903 opened in February with no hint of troubles to come. A difficulty with Venezuela, resulting in British and German co-operation to coerce that refractory republic, caused an explosion of anti-German feeling in England and some restlessness in the United States, but the government brought the crisis to an end by tactful handling and by ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 2 - "Baconthorpe" to "Bankruptcy" • Various

... black and the white man; and the misfortune of always having the border districts in a state of excitement and alarm, would be avoided, whilst the expense and inconvenience of occasionally sending large parties of military and police, to coerce or punish transgressors that they can rarely meet with, ...
— Journals Of Expeditions Of Discovery Into Central • Edward John Eyre

... something laid on his doorstep. His thoughts had been otherwise occupied, but the moment his eyes fell on the shepherd's-plaid shawl wrapping the bundle at his feet, he knew what it was, and recognised a renewed attempt to coerce him into doing what he had vowed he would not. He saw it all in a minute, and understood that now Jane Sands was in the plot against him, and she had devised this way of putting the child in his path because she was afraid to come to him ...
— Zoe • Evelyn Whitaker

... were men everywhere free; but as they are not so, it has in many countries been deemed necessary to prohibit the sale of men from off the land, as preliminary to the establishment of freedom. Nothing of this kind, however, can now be looked for, because there exists no power to coerce the owners of slaves to adopt any such measures; nor, if it did exist, would it be desirable that it should he exercised, as it would make the condition of both the slave and his master worse than it is even now. ...
— The trade, domestic and foreign • Henry Charles Carey

... living in the South; but he has recently returned to the city, and has sought a reconciliation with her, which, for some reason or other, she has refused. He next tried to get possession of their children, in order to coerce her through her affection for them; but she suspected his design and frustrated it by removing the children to a place of secrecy. All this Walsh told me this morning in the court, where he had come to get the habeas corpus served upon the woman ordering her to produce ...
— Ishmael - In the Depths • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth

... trouble about this rule is that it works both ways; when a man starts out to compel his neighbors to think as he does, he generally finds them willing to accept the challenge and they spend so much time in trying to coerce each other that they have no time left to do ...
— The Art of Public Speaking • Dale Carnagey (AKA Dale Carnegie) and J. Berg Esenwein

... into idleness and unprofitable company, and what not. In a word, Pen's greatest enemy was himself: and as he had been pampering, and coaxing, and indulging that individual all his life, the rogue grew insolent, as all spoiled servants will be; and at the slightest attempt to coerce him, or make him do that which was unpleasant to him, became frantically rude and unruly. A person who is used to making sacrifices—Laura, for instance, who had got such a habit of giving up her own pleasure for others-can ...
— The History of Pendennis, Vol. 2 - His Fortunes and Misfortunes, His Friends and His Greatest Enemy • William Makepeace Thackeray

... force, compel, coerce, constrain, require, necessitate, occasion, oblige; create, construct, fabricate manufacture, compose, invent, ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming

... respect and consideration: in short, for love and money. To these people one morality is as good as another provided they are used to it and can put up with its restrictions without unhappiness; and in the maintenance of this morality they will fight and punish and coerce without scruple. They may not be the salt of the earth, these Philistines; but they are the substance of civilization; and they save society from ruin by criminals and conquerors as well as by Savonarolas and Knipperdollings. And as they know, very sensibly, ...
— Preface to Androcles and the Lion - On the Prospects of Christianity • George Bernard Shaw

... dear Pritchard, if you will allow me to call you so," he exclaimed, "let me beg of you, before you leave us, not to take this trifling adventure too seriously! I can assure you that it was simply an attempt to coerce you, not in the least an affair to be ...
— The Tempting of Tavernake • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... him,—so the fish is but stewed,— Must torture live Pats for the general good. [Here patient groans and kicks a little.] Dr. Whig.—But what, if one's patient's so devilish perverse, That he won't be thus tortured? Dr. Tory. Coerce, sir, coerce. You're a juvenile performer, but once you begin, You can't think how fast you may train your hand in: And (smiling) who knows but old Tory may take to the shelf, With the comforting thought that, in place and in pelf, He's succeeded ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al

... the Crown would have fixed upon him is, that he assembled the Protestant Association round the House of Commons, not merely to influence and persuade Parliament by the earnestness of their supplications, but actually to coerce it by hostile, rebellious force; that, finding himself disappointed in the success of that coercion, he afterward incited his followers to abolish the legal indulgences to Papists, which the object ...
— Public Speaking • Irvah Lester Winter

... took it. A broken oath is, quatenus oath, As sound t' all purposes of troth, As broken laws are ne'er the worse; Nay, till th' are broken have no force. 280 What's justice to a man, or laws, That never comes within their claws They have no pow'r, but to admonish: Cannot controul, coerce, or punish, Until they're broken, and then touch 285 Those only that do make 'em such. Beside, no engagement is allow'd By men in prison made for good; For when they're set at liberty, They're from th' engagement too set free. 290 The ...
— Hudibras • Samuel Butler

... was even said that the abbess was invested with extraordinary powers by the rescript of the duke himself, powers which warranted her interference with the liberty of young females who were denounced to her by their parents, guardians, or others who might have a semblance of a right to control or coerce them. ...
— Wagner, the Wehr-Wolf • George W. M. Reynolds

... rapidly became a revolution. Ambition, patriotism, fanaticism, were mingled in one headlong torrent. The whole nation was in arms. The power of England was, indeed, as appeared some years later, sufficient to coerce Scotland; but a large part of the English people sympathized with the religious feelings of the insurgents, and many Englishmen who had no scruple about antiphonies and genuflexions, altars and surplices, saw with pleasure the progress of a rebellion ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 11 • Various

... the party in the Convention was shown on April fourth when a proposed Ordinance of Secession was voted down, eighty-nine to forty-five. On the same day, the Convention by a still larger majority formally denied the right of the Federal government to coerce a State. Two days later, John B. Baldwin, representing the Virginia Unionists, had a confidential talk with Lincoln. Only fragments of their talk, drawn forth out of memory long afterward—some of the reporting ...
— Lincoln • Nathaniel Wright Stephenson

... to pay up their debt?-In some cases we did that, but in other cases we did not; oftener we made no arrangement ....' '10,039. Have you, within the last twelve years, met with cases of that sort, in which the proprietor endeavoured to coerce you to pay his rent?-Yes. I have had cases where the tenants came asking me for money, and I told them I could not advance them any further. They would then go away, and come back and tell me that the proprietor's agent or ground-officer had informed them that they must get ...
— Second Shetland Truck System Report • William Guthrie

... retorted; "especially in matters of real estate, and future dwelling-houses and such things. But, really, what I'm going to do, is, to try to persuade, cajole, or coerce Mona into selling the place; for I know she doesn't really want it, only today, in the glamour of this firelight glow, it seems attractive to her. So, I must needs convince her of my ...
— Patty Blossom • Carolyn Wells

... not be used to coerce a state. If by this he means that the army should not be used to conquer a state, to compel her to be represented, to maintain the courts or post offices within her limits, to burn her cities or desolate her fields, he is entirely correct. ...
— Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet - An Autobiography. • John Sherman

... said to her. Man is a free agent, to use the old phrase, so far as God is concerned; utterly, wholly free. And, he is the most enslaved agent on the earth, so far as sin, and selfishness and prejudice are concerned. The purpose of our praying is not to force or coerce his will; never that. It is to free his will of the warping influences that now twist it awry. It is to get the dust out of his eyes so his sight shall be clear. And once he is free, able to see aright, to balance things without prejudice, the ...
— Quiet Talks on Prayer • S. D. (Samuel Dickey) Gordon

... the old Parisian ferocity might be no more than a sudden explosion, but if it should happen to be character rather than accident, then the people would need a strong hand like that of their former masters to coerce them; that all depended upon the French having wise heads among them, and upon these wise heads, if such there were, acquiring an authority to match their wisdom. There is nothing here but a calm and sagacious suspense ...
— Burke • John Morley

... neither force nor compel any one; nor need any one do it to serve or please us. But this should induce and constrain you by itself, that He desires it and that it is pleasing to Him. You must not suffer men to coerce you unto faith or any good work. We are doing no more than to say and exhort you as to what you ought to do, not for our sake, but for your own sake. He invites and allures you; if you despise it, you must answer for ...
— The Large Catechism by Dr. Martin Luther

... same time required that all the proceedings should be certified by the king and other persons as witnesses, in order that at a future time she should be replaced in her proper position. Perhaps, in ordinary circumstances, it would not have been possible for a country priest thus to coerce George III.; but Dr. Wilmot was in possession of a fatal secret. As is well known, King George was publicly married to Princess Charlotte in 1762; but, according to the showing of the petitioners, he had been previously married, in 1759, by this very Dr. Wilmot, to ...
— Celebrated Claimants from Perkin Warbeck to Arthur Orton • Anonymous

... protection against the Landeens, and the villagers were to begin this work the day after I left. It was sad to look at the ruin manifest in every building, but the half-castes appear to be in league with the rebels and Landeens; for when any attempt is made by the Portuguese to coerce the enemy or defend themselves, information is conveyed at once to the Landeen camp, and, though the commandant prohibits the payment of tribute to the Landeens, on their approach the half-castes eagerly ...
— Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa - Journeys and Researches in South Africa • David Livingstone

... single-minded, of unsullied commercial honor, admired his son's determination, and did not attempt to coerce him. ...
— Jennie Gerhardt - A Novel • Theodore Dreiser

... no further attempt to coerce the maddened young gentleman, but he took a kerchief from his doublet and carefully bound up ...
— Sea-Dogs All! - A Tale of Forest and Sea • Tom Bevan

... corpse-strewn districts of the Yser, from Artois, from Champagne and the Vosges hills and forests, and from the long, long line of Russia's grim defences—these winds shall blow it away, leaving a nation bankrupt not only in money, but in the power to coerce, in the power to inspire fear, and in all those things out of which the Hohenzollern dynasty has built up the last ...
— Raemaekers' Cartoons - With Accompanying Notes by Well-known English Writers • Louis Raemaekers

... mental or physical, is returned. Are not the children of such conditions being educated in lawlessness when the influence of their money so often permits them to break our laws with impunity? Are they not a menace to our government when they coerce and bribe our public servants to enact laws and enforce measures that are for the advantage of a few favored ones and against the welfare of our people as a whole? Are they not a menace to society when they would limit the meaning of the very word to their own select circles ...
— Helen of the Old House • Harold Bell Wright

... me,' she returned. 'I shall not forsake her. The convent that I propose to enter has a home attached to it, where they educate girls belonging to the upper classes. Mollie will have plenty of companions. The nuns are kind women, and they will not coerce her in any way, and there will be ...
— Lover or Friend • Rosa Nouchette Carey

... an unanimous vote of censure had been passed upon him in his absence, for the opposition which he had always displayed against his colleagues, and for the disgraceful part which he had taken in attempting to coerce them by force in the case of Penn. The document concluded, "We are therefore obliged, though with great and real reluctance, to take the unusual step of recording in the monitors' book this vote of censure against ...
— St. Winifred's - The World of School • Frederic W. Farrar

... offers. You may shake your head and look heroic with all your might! You are no better off than I, should your brother see cause to refuse his consent to your marriage with Mr. Chilton. He could, and probably would, coerce you into another alliance before you were twenty-one. There are so many ways of letting the life out of a woman's heart, when it is already faint from disappointment! The spirit is oftener broken by unyielding, but not seemingly ...
— At Last • Marion Harland

... and not entirely proper advice—advice of a completeness which would doubtless have astonished the suitor, then dressing somewhere in a furnished room and unconscious of the publicity of his call. Una also lent Miss Larsen a pair of silk stockings, helped three other girls to coerce her curly hair, and formed part of the solemn procession that escorted her to the top of the stairs when the still unconscious young man was announced from below. And it was Una who was able to see the young man without herself being seen, and to win notoriety by being able to report ...
— The Job - An American Novel • Sinclair Lewis

... of New York City was discussing the advisability of a separate secession by that financial centre from Nation and State alike—and of setting up as a "free town." Seward, just appointed Secretary of State, was repudiating in both official and private talk any intention to coerce the South by force of arms[134]. It is no wonder that British statesmen were largely at sea ...
— Great Britain and the American Civil War • Ephraim Douglass Adams

... confession, then, you believe either in her chastity and my sense of honour, or that, even guilty, I care so much for her that any threat against her happiness can effectually coerce me." ...
— Athalie • Robert W. Chambers

... fifteen years of age, is everything that I could wish him to be, except in one respect. He will not consent to enter the church. He wants to be a soldier, poor lad! Well, we cannot coerce him into a life of sanctity and self-denial. Such a life must always be a voluntary sacrifice. Neither do I wish to cross him, now that I am on my death-bed and doomed so soon to ...
— The Lost Lady of Lone • E.D.E.N. Southworth

... declared that under no circumstances would he disfigure the close of his political career by voting for the ballot,—not though the people, on whose behalf he had been fighting battles all his life, should be there in any number to coerce him,—there came another round of applause from the opposition benches, and Mr. Daubeny began to fear that some young horses in his team might get loose from their traces. With great dignity Mr. Daubeny had kept aloof from Mr. Turnbull and from ...
— Phineas Finn - The Irish Member • Anthony Trollope

... of their means of livelihood, and would drive ten thousand more into other vocations. But the power of the ministry forced the bills through, though twenty-one peers joined in a solemn protest. "We dissent," said they, "because the attempt to coerce, by famine, the whole body of the inhabitants of great and populous provinces, is without example in the history of this, or, perhaps, of any civilized nations." This was in 1775, and the revolution in America had already begun. It was the policy of ...
— American Merchant Ships and Sailors • Willis J. Abbot

... overruled by the lucid and able opinion of Lord Stowell in the more recent case of the slave Grace, reported in the second volume of Haggard, p. 94; in which opinion, whilst it is conceded by the learned judge that there existed no power to coerce the slave whilst in England, that yet, upon her return to the island of Antigua, her status as a slave was revived, or, rather, that the title of the owner to the slave as property had never been extinguished, but had always existed in that island. If the principle of this decision ...
— Report of the Decision of the Supreme Court of the United States, and the Opinions of the Judges Thereof, in the Case of Dred Scott versus John F.A. Sandford • Benjamin C. Howard

... The rare arrival of a visitor from some distant country-house to call at the Vicarage was the signal for every one, who could do so with decency, to escape from the unwelcome interruption. But as we grew older, Mrs. Arkwright would not allow this. The boys, indeed, were hard to coerce; they "bolted" still when the door-bell rang; but domestic authority, which is apt to be magnified on "the girls," overruled Eleanor and me for our good, and her mother—who reasoned with us far more than she commanded—convinced ...
— Six to Sixteen - A Story for Girls • Juliana Horatia Ewing

... could see what this condition of affairs portended, and there was at once great excitement throughout the country. In the North, the belief of a large majority of the people was that the administration intended to precipitate war, not merely to coerce Mexico into the acknowledgment of the Rio Grande as the boundary of Texas, but also to acquire further territory for the purpose of creating additional slave States. As soon as this impression, or suspicion, got abroad, the effect was an anti-slavery ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Vol. 1 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine

... C. P. R., in dismissing Mr. Smith, has been warmly endorsed by the cowardly and murderous liquor gang in Brome, and is so open to the suspicion of being an attempt to coerce the conscience and abridge the liberties of the citizens to serve the liquor interests as to make it imperative that some member of the Commons, which has so largely subsidized that road, demand in the approaching session a public investigation. ...
— The Story of a Dark Plot - or Tyranny on the Frontier • A.L.O. C. and W.W. Smith

... who had betrayed her were clearly a medley of passion and of hatred. She loved him as she was able to love; and she wished, at the same time, to coerce and be revenged on him. The momentary sense of shame had altogether passed. It was Diana who, with burning cheeks, stipulated that while Fanny must not return to town, but must stay at Beechcote till matters were arranged, she should not appear ...
— The Testing of Diana Mallory • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... no gun yesterday, and none this morning, as far as I can judge. Now we want the truth from you, Terence, but we do not wish to coerce you. Take time, and give us an answer your ...
— Rossmoyne • Unknown

... the discomfiture of the Tory agent, who had vainly hoped to coerce him in the stack yard without Marget's presence, as her intellectual contempt for the Conservative party knew ...
— Beside the Bonnie Brier Bush • Ian Maclaren

... not done to men. It is only women who are the victims of them. It would be impossible to keep up friendly relations with a guardian, who would really only be there—only exist—to thwart and coerce me. ...
— Delia Blanchflower • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... should yield themselves faithful and obedient subjects to David their liege lord, and not only give due and prompt obedience to the ministers of the King in suit and service, as well as in the payment of taxes and public burdens, but that they would coerce and put down all others, and compel all who dared to rise against the King's authority to make due submission, or pursue them from their respective territories." For the fulfilment of these obligations, the Lord ...
— History Of The Mackenzies • Alexander Mackenzie

... attacked by Charles in the Stettin regions, has reluctantly to take the lead in that repressive movement. On the 28th of April, 1715, Friedrich Wilhelm declares war against Charles; is already on march, with a great force, towards Stettin, to coerce and repress said Charles. No help for it, so sore as it goes against us: "Why will the very King whom I most respect compel me to be his enemy?" said Friedrich Wilhelm. [ OEuvres de Frederic (Histoire de Brandebourg), i. 132; ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Volume IV. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—Friedrich's Apprenticeship, First Stage—1713-1728 • Thomas Carlyle

... of diplomacy. Those who know about such things were fully aware of what would happen if a whole lot of British sailors and diplomatists and journalists were exposed to the hospitalities of Washington. The British and Americans are both alike. You can't drive them or lead them or coerce them, but if you give them a cigar they'll do anything. The inner history of the conference is only just beginning to be known. But it is whispered that immediately on his arrival Mr. Balfour was given a cigar by President Harding. Mr. Balfour ...
— My Discovery of England • Stephen Leacock

... the morning, just to dress myself and go down to the pleasant dining-room, with the great logs spluttering out a bright welcome, and the breakfast table loaded with many a dainty. No shivering Dot to coerce into good humor; no feckless Jack to frown into order; no grim Deborah to coax and help. Was it very wicked that I felt all this a relief? Then how deliciously the days passed; the few lessons with Flurry, more play than work; the inspiriting ramble ending generally ...
— Esther - A Book for Girls • Rosa Nouchette Carey

... large and notorious cases. Well, then, if they have, then at once falls to the ground this alleged overruling coercion a priori of the climate and the desert. Climate and desert do not necessarily coerce them, if in large and notorious cases they have failed to do so. So feels Gibbon; and, by an instinct of timidity, back he flies to the previous evasion—to the natural controlling power of climate and soil, admitting the Scriptural fact, but seeking for it an unscriptural ground, as ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. 1 (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey

... Jamaica legislature to fulfil its appropriate functions has no connection with the working of freedom, any further than it may have been a struggle to get rid in some measure of the surveillance of the mother country in order to coerce the labourer so far as possible by vagrant laws, &c. The immediate pretext was the passing of a law by the imperial Parliament for the regulation of prisons, which the House of Assembly declared a violation of that principle of their charter which forbids the mother-country to lay a tax on them ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society

... Buchanan. When did the head of a Government ever before have the courage to aid a rebellion against it, so gracefully yielding it the national forts, ships, mints, guns, and arsenals? But what we most admire is his message, in which he proved you have no right to coerce the South or suppress rebellion. This was a splendid discovery for us, as it demonstrated how superior our Government is to yours. If Mr. Buchanan would come here, we would raise him to the peerage, and, in commemoration ...
— The Continental Monthly , Vol. 2 No. 5, November 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... inhabitants, in what, as a matter of principle, is the State better than the county? Would an exchange of name be an exchange of rights? Upon what principle, upon what rightful principle, may a State, being no more than one fiftieth part of the nation in soil and population, break up the nation, and then coerce a proportionably large subdivision of itself in the most arbitrary way? What mysterious right to play tyrant is conferred on a district of country, with its people, by merely calling it a State? ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln

... that no more time should be wasted in useless discussion, but that the sultan must be at once brought to terms; indeed, our own safety demanded it, for the popular feeling was so much excited, and the people were so indignant at our attempt to coerce their sultan, that we were in hourly ...
— Borneo and the Indian Archipelago - with drawings of costume and scenery • Frank S. Marryat

... aversion. He soon realised that her influence over his wife was very far from benevolent towards himself, but, save that he persisted in declining all social invitations to Blythebury, he made no attempt to counteract the evil. In fact, it was not his custom to coerce her. He denied her very little, though with regard to that ...
— The Tidal Wave and Other Stories • Ethel May Dell

... able to coerce him," said the sour Desroches, "I should advise you to oppose his tastes; but weak as I see you are, you had better let him daub if ...
— The Celibates - Includes: Pierrette, The Vicar of Tours, and The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac

... have explained that Professor Frazer leaves us of his own free will, still persist in their stubborn desire to create trouble, and still feel that the faculty have not treated Professor Frazer properly, or that we have endeavored to coerce him, then let them stand up, right here and now, in chapel. I mean it! Let them stop this cowardly running to and fro and secret gossip. Let them stand right up before us, in token of protest, here—and—now! ...
— The Trail of the Hawk - A Comedy of the Seriousness of Life • Sinclair Lewis

... state where you made the contract." He stopped a moment when she shrank visibly in her chair, for he was about to say a really cruel thing. He would not have said it, had he not deemed it entirely necessary, in order to coerce her to his will; but he went on, relentlessly: "If you make it needful to do so, I shall not hesitate to send officers here, to take you before a court, there to relate why you will not carry out ...
— The Last Woman • Ross Beeckman

... with your Eight Hours' Bill? Prodigiously! Your strong personality, would push forward even a worse thing. How near are you to unanimity? As near as considerable difference of opinion will allow us to come. Is an unascertained minority to coerce an unwilling majority? Our Council has not discussed that? Do you know the relative proportions of majority and majority in organised and unorganised trades; how their respective opinions are to be ascertained, and, if ascertained, how legally enforced; if, and how, two millions ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 102, June 25, 1892 • Various

... the warm side of the big rock a little while," said Jerome. He looked subdued before his mother's gaze, and yet not abashed. She always felt sure that there was some hidden reserve of rebellion in Jerome, coerce him into obedience as she might. She never really governed him, as she did her daughter Elmira, who stood washing dishes at the sink. But she loved Jerome better, although she tried not to, and would not own it ...
— Jerome, A Poor Man - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman

... evening under the shadow of Music Mountain. Nan believed she could at least win her Uncle Duke over from any effort of Gale's to coerce her. Her influence over her uncle had never yet failed, and she was firm in the conviction she could gain him to her side, since he had everything to win and nothing to lose by siding against Gale, whom ...
— Nan of Music Mountain • Frank H. Spearman

... profoundest religious teacher ever born of woman; and no more eloquent testimony could well be offered to the sincerity of the royal convert than the well-nigh miraculous self-restraint with which he forebore to cajole or coerce those of his subjects whom his arguments failed to convince. Satisfied with the progress of the new religion in his native place, he despatched his son, Mahindo, to introduce it into Ceylon; and so successful were the young prince's missionary efforts that that ...
— The Sceptics of the Old Testament: Job - Koheleth - Agur • Emile Joseph Dillon

... campaign commenced. The snows of winter, still lying on the mountains, though thawing on the southern slopes, helped to screen his movements from the enemy's outposts; and the French vanguard pushed along the coastline even as far as Voltri. This movement was designed to coerce the Senate of Genoa into payment of a fine for its acquiescence in the seizure of a French vessel by a British cruiser within its neutral roadstead; but it served to alarm Beaulieu, who, breaking up his cantonments, sent a strong column towards that city. ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose

... profession of faith, but can deceive neither God nor himself. The mind of even the worst of men is a court in which every cause is tried with rigid impartiality, with absolute honesty. A fool may mislead it, a child may convince it, but not even its possessor can coerce it; hence to command one to "believe," without first providing him with a satisfactory basis for his faith, were an idle waste of breath. A man is no more blamable for doubting the existence of Deity than for doubting aught else that may seem to him absurd. ...
— Volume 1 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann

... means, that even should you succeed in obtaining the treasure that you are after, you will never be able to take it home and enjoy it. Now, think over what I have said, and let me know your decision as soon as you have made up your mind. But do not you ever again attempt to coerce me by uttering threats of violence to the lady, for it will not do! My chief stipulation is that she shall be as absolutely secure from insult or injury among you as though she were under the protection ...
— The Castaways • Harry Collingwood

... antithesis of Mr. Mill's "Law" is Free Will. Law and antecedent necessity to Mr. Mill are one and the same. But Law in Catholic terminology means the Will of God decreeing freely or not freely, according to the subject-matter; and is not opposed to Free-Will. It guides, it need not coerce or necessitate, though it may. Neither in one sense, is Law synonymous with Reason, for that is according to Reason, simply, which does not involve a contradiction, whether it be done freely or of necessity; and many things ...
— The Contemporary Review, January 1883 - Vol 43, No. 1 • Various

... such a passion. I hate myself when I think of the depth to which I have stooped in permitting myself to think tenderly of one so ignobly born, but I love him! I love him! I love him! (Weeps.) CAPT. Come, my child, let us talk this over. In a matter of the heart I would not coerce my daughter—I attach but little value to rank or wealth, but the line must be drawn somewhere. A man in that station may be brave and worthy, but at every step he would commit solecisms that society would never pardon. JOS. Oh, I have thought of this night and day. But fear not, father, I have ...
— The Complete Plays of Gilbert and Sullivan - The 14 Gilbert And Sullivan Plays • William Schwenk Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan

... so dependent on the weather that he should omit no opportunity of acquiring meteorological knowledge. Electric influences guide and coerce ...
— The Teesdale Angler • R Lakeland

... any. As all these provincial legislatures are only cooerdinate to each other, they ought all to be subordinate to her; else they can neither preserve mutual peace, nor hope for mutual justice, nor effectually afford mutual assistance. It is necessary to coerce the negligent, to restrain the violent, and to aid the weak and deficient, by the overruling plenitude of her power. She is never to intrude into the place of the others, whilst they are equal to the common ends of their institution. But in order to enable Parliament to ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. II. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... the horrors of civil war. You do not know whether the people will support you. You grant that there is some justice in the contention of the South, and you claim for your own case only a balance of truth. You admit that to coerce the millions of the South back into the Union is a kind of task which has never been performed in the world before and one which the wise of all ages have pronounced impossible. And yet, for the ...
— The Path of the King • John Buchan

... speak of private feuds, which abounded ad libitum. Neighboring potentates, Archbishop of Magdeburg and others, struck in also at discretion, as they had gradually got accustomed to do, and snapped away some convenient bit of territory, or, more legitimately, they came across to coerce, at their own hand, this or the other Edle Herr of the Turpin sort, whom there was no other way of getting at, when he carried matters quite too high. "Droves of six hundred swine"—I have seen (by reading in those old books) certain noble gentlemen, "of Putlitz," ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various

... only enable them to accomplish more political mischief—for they reject as nothing all measures, however beneficial, which do not tend to the dismemberment of the empire; endow their church, and they accuse you of corrupting it; truckle to them, and you but make them more exacting; coerce them, and you benefit themselves and ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 350, December 1844 • Various

... In the case of Lady Fanny, however, the object itself—and quite by the same law that had worked, though less profoundly, on the entrance of little Aggie—superseded the usual rapt communion very much in the manner of some beautiful tame tigress who might really coerce attention. There was in Mrs. Brookenham's way of looking up at her a dim despairing abandonment of the idea of any common personal ground. Lady Fanny, magnificent, simple, stupid, had almost the stature of her brother, a forehead unsurpassably low and an air of sombre concentration ...
— The Awkward Age • Henry James

... South maintained that the Union formed under the Constitution was one of consent and not of force; that each State retained the right to resume its independence on sufficient cause, and that the Constitution gave no warrant for the attempt to invade and coerce a sovereign State. It was for this, not to preserve slavery, that the people sprang as one man to arms and fought as men ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 2 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris

... had been inveighing and from which she had suffered. Mrs. Whately was quick to see the apparent weakness in his argument, for she said, "Consistency is a jewel which I suppose is little cared for by those so ready to appeal to force. With one breath you say we must not coerce the wills of others, and now you say you would, even though you did violence to ...
— Miss Lou • E. P. Roe

... way; for it had naught to do with the matter in hand—the discovery of a scheme which would place the remedium within his grasp. He thought awhile of the young student. He might make a second attempt to coerce him. But Claude's flat refusal to go farther with the matter, a refusal on which, up to the time of Basterga's abrupt entrance, the Syndic had made no impression, was a factor; and reluctantly, after some thought, Blondel put him out ...
— The Long Night • Stanley Weyman

... the power of the Council is not effectual against the inferior servants, that [it?] is too weak to coerce them. With much more truth Mr. Sumner has said, in his minute, you might easily coerce the inferior servants, but that the dread of falling upon persons in high stations discourages and puts an end to complaint. I quote the recorded authority of the ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. XII. (of XII.) • Edmund Burke

... oppress, override; trample under foot; tread under foot, tread upon, trample upon, tread down upon, trample down upon; crush under an iron heel, ride roughshod over; rivet the yoke; hold a tight hand, keep a tight hand; force down the throat; coerce &c. 744; give no quarter &c. (pitiless) 914a. Adj. severe; strict, hard, harsh, dour, rigid, stiff, stern, rigorous, uncompromising, exacting, exigent, exigeant[obs3], inexorable, inflexible, obdurate, austere, hard-headed, hard-nosed, hard-shell [U.S.], ...
— Roget's Thesaurus

... Mr. North," said I, "is the very best on earth if it goes well, and the worst if it goes ill. We have no standing army to fight for an administration as for a throne or dynasty; so that if a State secedes, the question is how to coerce that people, if it be best to attempt it. Citizens do not like to march against their brethren. Think of our taking up arms against our correspondents; against people that have gone from our churches and settled in that State; against cousins, ...
— The Sable Cloud - A Southern Tale With Northern Comments (1861) • Nehemiah Adams

... before they act, this will be considered as a vote against reprisals, and then the law will be proposed and I think carried. But I ought not to conceal from you that the excitement is at present very great; that their pride is deeply wounded by what they call an attempt to coerce them by threats to the payment of a sum which they persist, in opposition to the plainest proof, in declaring not to be due. This feeling is fostered by the language of our opposition papers, particularly by the Intelligencer and New York Courier, extracts from which have been sent on by ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 1 (of 2) of Volume 3: Andrew Jackson (Second Term) • James D. Richardson

... us to the last, through every fibre. My duty! By what authority do people choose for me my duty? If I can be forced to abide by their decision in the matter, let them be satisfied with their power to coerce me, but let them leave my conscience alone. It does not ...
— The Daughters of Danaus • Mona Caird

... not doubt that George thought it his right and also his duty to coerce America, or rather, as he said, the clamorous minority which was trying to force rebellion. He showed no lack of sincerity. On October 26, 1775, while Washington was besieging Boston, he opened Parliament with a speech which ...
— Washington and his Comrades in Arms - A Chronicle of the War of Independence • George Wrong

... purpose, resolved to coerce Parliament by military force. He left London in 1642, never to return until he came as a prisoner, and was delivered into the custody of that legislative body that he had insulted and defied. Parliament now attempted to come to an understanding ...
— The Leading Facts of English History • D.H. Montgomery

... are very discouraging," said Daru, shrugging his shoulders. "More rigorous measures will probably become necessary to coerce ...
— Napoleon and the Queen of Prussia • L. Muhlbach

... cannot be called upon to strip himself of his personal property for disinterested reasons, if he feels that he is surrounded by people who would use the spoils for their own interest. The process must be carried out by a sincere majority, who may then coerce the selfish minority. I have no conception what I should do with my money if I determined that I ought not to possess it. It ought not to be applied to any public purpose, because under a socialist regime ...
— At Large • Arthur Christopher Benson

... They were outrageously henpecked, made to dance attendance until all hours of the morning upon silly, bridge-loving wives. True, but they were poor, weak-minded simpletons, just the kind of men to be dominated, bullied by a woman. He would like to see the girl who could coerce him into doing anything he did not wish to do. If he ever married, he would rule his own household; no woman would venture to dictate to him. He would insist on his absolute independence, do as he chose, go where he liked. He would be the master. If the husband had not the right to command, ...
— Bought and Paid For - From the Play of George Broadhurst • Arthur Hornblow

... railroads possible. Human life has not been spared, for human life in the Congo is as dust in the balance when weighed against the profits from rubber. Punitive expeditions have been organized (in other words, wholesale slaughter has been resorted to), in order to coerce the reluctant natives to bring in their supplies more punctually. The wives and daughters of the natives have been seized, brutally chained, and detained as hostages in order to influence their husbands and fathers ...
— The Essentials of Spirituality • Felix Adler

... the character and substance of the great landholders, exacted from the weaker all that they could pay, and "bided his time." When he resumed the charge in 1842, the greater landholders had become strong and substantial; and he was commanded by the Durbar to coerce and make them pay all the arrears of revenue due, or pretended to be due, ...
— A Journey through the Kingdom of Oude, Volumes I & II • William Sleeman

... suggested that you should coerce her, as you put it. I merely meant that you could point out to her, as a father, where her duty ...
— A Damsel in Distress • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse

... follows an eloquent passage about our friendly Colonies, "overarched by zodiacs and stars, clasped by many-sounding seas." Carlyle would apparently force emigration, and coerce the Australians, Americans, and Chinese, to receive our ship-loads of living merchandise; but the problem of population exceeds his solution of it. He everywhere inclines to rely on coercion till it is over-mastered by resistance, and ...
— Thomas Carlyle - Biography • John Nichol

... childhood the one embodiment her life presented to her of power to coerce and power to relieve, power to bind and power to loose, the ascendency over her weakness was secured. She was twenty-one years and twenty-one days old, when he brought her home to the gloomy house, his half-witted, frightened, and ...
— The Lazy Tour of Two Idle Apprentices • Charles Dickens

... of one village murdered one of another, the aggrieved village if too weak to procure direct redress might save its face by killing someone in a third village, whereupon the third must by intertribal convention make common cause with the second at once, or else coerce a fourth into the punitive alliance by applying the same sort of persuasion that it had just felt. These later killings in the series were not regarded as murders but as diplomatic overtures. The system was hard upon those who ...
— American Negro Slavery - A Survey of the Supply, Employment and Control of Negro Labor as Determined by the Plantation Regime • Ulrich Bonnell Phillips

... it, or rather broke it up, when he perceived its arbitrary character, and its disregard of the fundamental principles of the Constitution. He was able to do this after its unsuccessful attempt to coerce the American colonies. ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume IX • John Lord

... the bread-winning occupations. But if a woman thinks she can be satisfied to work regularly on a newspaper or a magazine she may often earn a large income. If money or fame is her object she must always sign her own name to everything she writes, as it takes genius to coerce the public ...
— Girls and Women • Harriet E. Paine (AKA E. Chester}

... Russell, are not felt by pragmatists to constitute exceptions worth considering. Dialectical relations, they will say, are verbal only; that is, they define ideal objects, and certainty in these cases does not coerce existence, or touch contingent fact at all. On the other hand, such apprehension as seizes on some matter of fact, as, for instance, "I feel pain," or "I expected to feel this pain, and it is now verifying my expectation," ...
— Winds Of Doctrine - Studies in Contemporary Opinion • George Santayana

... South Carolina, her constituted authorities or citizens, or any act abolishing or closing the ports of this State, or any of them, or otherwise obstructing the free ingress and egress of vessels to and from the said ports, or any other act on the part of the Federal Government to coerce the State, shut up her ports, destroy or harass her commerce, or to enforce the acts hereby declared to be null and void, otherwise than through the civil tribunals of the country, as inconsistent with the longer ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents, - Vol. 2, Part 3, Andrew Jackson, 1st term • Edited by James D. Richardson

... with you," he said. "There is only one way to handle such as you. At present I hold the power to coerce you, and I shall continue to hold that power until I am safely out of your two-by-four kingdom. If you do as I say you shall have your throne back again. If you refuse, why by Heaven you shall never have it. I'll ...
— The Mad King • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... Bokhara has several times endeavoured to coerce the Shere Subz's chief, but the instant a hostile force appears on his frontiers, the latter causes the whole of his country to be inundated, so that the invader is obliged to retire, and is by this stratagem kept at a ...
— A Peep into Toorkisthhan • Rollo Burslem

... conversing at the top of her voice with herself or with the empty air. When I took her to task on the subject she explained that she was merely rehearsing to join some play actors she had seen performing on the common. Neither locks nor bars will hold her, for I have tried both. I would not dare to coerce her in any smallest degree, for I know not what might happen. So I hope you will see, my dear Cecil, that it would be indeed wise if you could take her advice and put her out of your mind. I fear that, as she says, she has given me all the love ...
— Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 6, July 1905 • Various

... Summers he said: "There may be several more big red firs growing handy beside the river, and I mean to prevent any more accidents of this kind in future. If your employer will not reimburse me, I will bear the cost myself. I would sooner spend my last dollar than allow any of these loafers to coerce me." ...
— Thurston of Orchard Valley • Harold Bindloss

... telling lies. He may be untruthful in his very theme, if he is lacking in sanity of outlook upon the things that are. He may be untruthful in his characterization, if he interferes with his people after they are once created and attempts to coerce them to his purposes instead of allowing them to work out their own destinies. He may be untruthful in his plotting, if he devises situations arbitrarily for the sake of mere immediate effect. He may be untruthful in his dialogue, ...
— A Manual of the Art of Fiction • Clayton Hamilton

... sole cause of the silence. Commines' last question, What is left? though a mere flourish of rhetoric, had stirred another possible reply. Reconcilement was left, the union of father and son in love was left. Inexorable logic as voiced by Commines, if it was logic at all and not a sophism, might coerce the King to a terrible justice, but would the father's love not welcome the reconcilement of a son's penitence as a way of escape from the ultimate horror of the logic? And surely that love must be a very tender, very yearning, very forgiving love ...
— The Justice of the King • Hamilton Drummond

... Directors of the Company, should be capable of an appointment to any offices in India. Directors can never properly govern those for whose employments they are or may be themselves candidates; they can neither protect nor coerce them with ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VIII. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... be held inviolate, was the answer to the cry from both the North and the South; but armed neutrality, said Kentucky. The State had not the moral right to secede; the Nation, no constitutional right to coerce: if both the North and the South left their paths of duty and fought—let both keep their battles from her soil. Straightway State Guards went into camp and Home Guards were held in reserve, but there was not a ...
— The Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come • John Fox

... of Miss Bowes to make out that I'm breaking my word. Oh dear! what am I to write home to Mother? How can I tell her? I believe I'll just send her a picture post card, and only say Rona has come, and no more. Miss Bowes has no right to coerce me. I'll make my own friends. No, I've quite made up my mind she shan't cram Rona down my throat. To have that awful girl eternally in my ...
— For the Sake of the School • Angela Brazil

... clean-natured boy, but what he did and did not know it would have been hard to say, as, added to a certain secretiveness which in different ways both Phoebe and Ishmael possessed, there was in him a strain of elusiveness; you could not coerce him to a definiteness he did not wish any more than you could catch a butterfly by stabbing at it in ...
— Secret Bread • F. Tennyson Jesse

... guaranty was there that States would observe these prohibitions? The power to coerce a State was nowhere conferred. The militia, to be sure, could be called out to execute the laws; and the United States guaranteed to every State a republican form of government and promised protection against domestic violence. Congress ...
— Union and Democracy • Allen Johnson

... yield no obedience; and when every sacred constitutional barrier had been swept away by Lincoln—when the habeas corpus was abolished, and freedom of speech and press denied—when the Washington conclave essayed to coerce freemen, to 'crush Secession' through the agency of the sword and cannon—then I swore allegiance to the 'Seven States' where all of republican liberty remained. Henceforth my home is with the South; my hopes and destiny hers; her sorrows ...
— Macaria • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson

... to meinself and—and I am dead to my leetle girl. LOWENA. Oh, yes, Gustave, it is indeed a sad misfortune for us both, that my father should have entered into a contract which had for its object to coerce me into becoming the wife of Herman Van Slaus. RIP. [Aside.] Yes, dat is a fact. I remember, de burgomaster come to my house last night mit a paper, and I wrote my name down on it; but I vas trunk. GUSTAVE. ...
— Representative Plays by American Dramatists: 1856-1911: Rip van - Winkle • Charles Burke

... "Baron de Sigognac, I accede to your request, and consent to this alliance, with great pleasure—so far, that is, as my paternal will accords with the wishes of my beloved daughter—whom I should never attempt to coerce in anything. The Comtesse de Lineuil must be consulted in this matter, and herself decide the question which is of such vital importance to her. I cannot undertake to answer for her—the whims and fancies of young ladies are ...
— Captain Fracasse • Theophile Gautier

... national belief, the Tenshi, "Son of Heaven,"—the Tenno, "Heavenly King." Through every period of disorder the Offspring of the Sun was the object of national worship, and his palace the temple of the national faith. Great captains might coerce the imperial will; but they styled themselves, none the less, the worshippers and slaves of the incarnate deity; and they would no more have thought of trying to occupy his throne, than they would have thought of trying to abolish all religion ...
— Japan: An Attempt at Interpretation • Lafcadio Hearn

... Harrigans! They had bullied their way to the front; if anything were done with them, it would be by force! If anything were done with Percy, it would be by laying hold of him before these guests, exposing the situation, and using their feelings to coerce him! ...
— King Coal - A Novel • Upton Sinclair

... between the German and Slavonic provinces. The Government of Austria, after it had recovered its authority at the end of 1848, refused to accept this position, and published a new Constitution, binding all the provinces together in a closer union. The Assembly at Frankfort had no power to coerce the Emperor of Austria; they therefore adopted the other solution, viz.: that the rest of Germany was to be reconstituted, and the Austrian provinces left out. The question, however, then arose: Would Austria accept this—would she allow a new Germany to be created in which she had no ...
— Bismarck and the Foundation of the German Empire • James Wycliffe Headlam

... enough, if successful, but inductive to hanging, if unfortunate. Now those same men nearly all argue for the right of peaceable secession, declaring that the State has a right to go out at will, and that the Federal Government has no right to coerce or punish it. These turncoats are the sympathetic, who are carried away by a rush of popular enthusiasm, and the fearful or peaceable, who dread or dislike violence. Let us see how a timid Unionist can be ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 7, Issue 42, April, 1861 • Various

... coerce the European powers by retaliatory legislation. As early as April, 1806, a law had been passed forbidding the importation of certain British wares, but was suspended six weeks after it came into operation. ...
— The Political History of England - Vol XI - From Addington's Administration to the close of William - IV.'s Reign (1801-1837) • George Brodrick

... Fanning's part in the mystery of the stolen jewels of Mrs. Bancroft, the mother of Jess and Jimsy, will likewise be probably held in memory by those who perused that volume. The elder Harding's part in the attempt to coerce the young Prescotts into parting with their aerial secrets, consisted in trying to foreclose a mortgage he held on the Prescott home, with the alternative of Roy turning over to him the blue prints and descriptions of his devices left ...
— The Girl Aviators' Sky Cruise • Margaret Burnham

... and blessed, and is 'joy in the Lord,' will manifest itself by efflorescing into all holiness and all loftiness and largeness of obedience. You may try to frighten men into righteousness, you will never succeed. You may try to coerce their wills, and your strongest bands will be broken as the iron chains were by the demoniac. But put upon them the silken leash of love, and you may lead them where you will. You cannot grow grapes on an iceberg, and you cannot get works of righteousness out of a man that has a dread of God ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Isaiah and Jeremiah • Alexander Maclaren

... Lem Hallowell interposed, as he drove up with the stage, "what kind of free principles be you preachin'? You'd ought to know better'n coerce." ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... double attack, but it is one of which less has been heard in Great Britain than in the United States. It is possible under a competitive system for rivals to come to an agreement. The more powerful may coerce the weaker, or a number of equals may agree to work together. Thus competition may defeat itself, and industry may be marshalled into trusts or other combinations for the private advantage against the public interest. Such combinations, predicted ...
— Liberalism • L. T. Hobhouse

... the city increased rapidly the price of grain, and augmented the alarm of the people, who began to urge the magistrate to listen to their prayers, and coerce the sordid corn- dealers, who had, no doubt, numerous pits yet unopened. The alarm became still greater in the cantonments, where the commanding officer attributed all the evil to the inefficiency of the commissariat and the villany of the corn-dealers; ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman

... boundless devotion, help, and service. And now it was command. Oh, had he but said this before! Had he bidden her then choose between her child and him, before— And as she looked at him a wild ridicule added itself to these other thoughts. To see him standing making his speech, thinking he could coerce like that a woman like herself, thinking in his youthfulness that he could sway any woman's heart like that, and cut off the ties that vexed him, and settle everything for the good of both! Heaven! to see him lifting up his authoritative head, ...
— A Country Gentleman and his Family • Mrs. (Margaret) Oliphant

... adopt a secession ordinance, and declare themselves a free, independent, sovereign state, and bid defiance to the tax-collector and the provost-marshall, and that, too, without forfeiting their estates or changing their domicile. Would the government employ military force to coerce them back to their allegiance? By what right? Government is their agent, their creature, and no man owes allegiance to his ...
— The American Republic: Its Constitution, Tendencies, and Destiny • A. O. Brownson



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