Other forms: coerced, coercing, coerces
To coerce somebody is to force them to do something by threat or pressure. Coerced into signing, coerce a confession, nobody coerced him.
It is a formal word and it belongs to law, politics and reporting rather than to conversation, where make or force go instead. The threat is the essential part: persuading is not coercing, and the distinction matters legally — a coerced confession is inadmissible, and coercive control is a criminal offence in Britain. The pattern is coerce somebody into doing something. Note the pronunciation: three syllables, ko-URSE, with the c hard at the front and soft at the end.
1verbcoerceTo force somebody to do something by threat or pressure.
“They were coerced into signing an agreement nobody read.”
coerce is a way of forcing.
Latin coercere is co-, together, plus arcere, to shut in or restrain — literally to hem somebody in on all sides. That is a better picture of coercion than force is: not a push, but the closing off of every other option.
Proto-Indo-European
*h₂erk-
Latin
coërceō — to surround, encompass, restrain, control, curb
English, today
coerce
Built from
From Latin coërceō (“to surround, encompass, restrain, control, curb”), from co- (“together”) + arceō (“to inclose, confine, keep off”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA