coerce
Americanverb (used with object)
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coerces,
present (3rd person singular)
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coerced,
past participle, past
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coercing
present participle
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to compel by force, intimidation, or authority, especially without regard for individual desire or volition.
They coerced him into signing the document.
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to bring about through the use of force or other forms of compulsion; exact.
to coerce obedience.
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to dominate or control, especially by exploiting fear, anxiety, etc..
The state is based on successfully coercing the individual.
verb
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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coercesimple
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coercessimple
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have coercedperfect
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has coercedperfect
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am coercingprogressive
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are coercingprogressive
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is coercingprogressive
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have been coercingperfect progressive
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has been coercingperfect progressive
Past
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coercedsimple
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had coercedperfect
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was coercingprogressive
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were coercingprogressive
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had been coercingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of coerce
First recorded in 1425–75; late Middle English, from Latin coercēre “to hold in, restrain,” equivalent to co- co- + -ercēre, combining form of arcēre “to keep in, keep away,” akin to arca ark
Explanation
You can bring a horse to water, but you can't make him drink. You can coerce — or pressure — someone to attend your office holiday party, but you can't make him have fun. If you're at a point where you feel like you need to coerce someone into doing something, it might be more civilized to just give up. To coerce is to manipulate, use aggressive arguments, pressure unfairly, or threaten — really, this isn't very civilized behavior, is it? Handy synonyms for this verb include force and pressure. In a gangster film, you might hear a character say he "put the squeeze" on someone — another way of saying he coerced them.
Vocabulary lists containing coerce
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
A fast, he insisted, was not blackmail but an act of suffering intended to awaken rather than coerce.
From BBC ● Jul. 16, 2026
Vullo, in which the court held that the government cannot use informal tactics, like thinly-veiled threats of selective enforcement or demands for cooperation, to coerce private actors.
From Salon ● Jul. 10, 2026
District Court Judge Patrick Schiltz quashed the “unlawful” subpoenas, ruling that “overwhelming evidence” suggested they “were not issued to investigate, but to harass, coerce, and retaliate.”
From Slate ● Jun. 22, 2026
Seong-Hyon Lee, a visiting scholar at the Harvard University Asia Center, also said Beijing is shifting towards "underwriting regime durability" rather than seeking to coerce North Korea into denuclearisation.
From Barron's ● Jun. 7, 2026
She grappled briefly with Bloomberg, trying to coerce him into a docile lap-cat’s repose.
From "Franny and Zooey" by J. D. Salinger
“We’re both familiar with what can happen and what has happened, when the state coerces people and restricts fundamental human rights, on a very personal level,” Howald said.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Nov. 9, 2025
On top of that, Amazon coerces those third party sellers into signing up for Amazon’s own fulfillment and advertising services — leading to increased costs that then get passed on to customers, the FTC argues.
From Seattle Times ● Nov. 2, 2023
Lawsuits also say the program unconstitutionally coerces drugmakers into selling their products at inadequate prices.
From Scientific American ● Aug. 30, 2023
Just do not be surprised when your sister-in-law ignores any handwritten invitations and coerces you into sending text reminders anyway.
From Washington Post ● Feb. 24, 2023
He avoids the ballroom entirely, save for a single waltz when Tsukiko coerces him onto the dance floor.
From "The Night Circus" by Erin Morgenstern
Interviewing prisoners of war is not straightforward: to be sure they are not being coerced, first and foremost, and then to assess how openly they are speaking in the circumstances.
From BBC ● Aug. 20, 2026
The patients I know who contributed to the hospital to “honor” their doctor were certainly not coerced.
From MarketWatch ● Jul. 2, 2026
What will change is that Americans will no longer be coerced into sacrificing their First Amendment rights.
From Barron's ● Jun. 3, 2026
Parliament’s Intelligence and Security Committee, China is known to have “conducted coerced repatriations of economic fugitives from the U.K. and kidnapping of dual nationals overseas.”
From The Wall Street Journal ● May 7, 2026
Week after week, aided or coerced by their parents, they came, and week after week Milton Stephanides excused himself to go up to his bedroom and play his clarinet out the window.
From "Middlesex: A Novel" by Jeffrey Eugenides
“Detaining people and not giving them the chance to get out of detention is a way of coercing people to give up their claims.”
From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 19, 2026
District Court for the District of Columbia, accusing them of violating the First Amendment by coercing a private entity to censor speech and threatening prosecution over the exercise of protected speech.
From Slate ● Dec. 8, 2025
The board had alleged that the company had been “interfering with, restraining and coercing employees in the exercise of their rights.”
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 1, 2025
A sports coach at a Taiwanese university has issued a formal apology over a research project that allegedly involved her coercing students into giving blood, according to local media.
From BBC ● Jul. 20, 2025
But Rube, as we have said, did not hear that piteous wail of a woman coercing her flesh and blood, the frame of her mind, the bent of her soul.
From Belford's Magazine, Volume II, No. 8, January, 1889 by Various
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
