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coercion

UK/kəʊˈɜːʃən/US/koʊˈɝʒən/
nounC1Occasional — familiar, but not everyday · #10,994 of 15,258leans written

Coercion is making somebody act by force or threats. Under coercion, coercion of witnesses, without coercion.

In law it makes an agreement voidable, since a contract signed under coercion was never really agreed to. The threat need not be violent: economic coercion and coercive control are both recognised without a blow being struck.

Definitions of coercion

  1. 1nouncoercionMaking somebody act by force or threats.C1

    “The confession was thrown out because the police had used coercion.”

coercion is a forcing.

Where it comes from

Latin coercere means to restrain, from co-, together, plus arcere, to shut in.

  1. Proto-Indo-European

    *h₂erk-

  2. Latin

    coërcitiō — magisterial coercion

  3. Old French

    cohercion

  4. Middle English

    cohercioun

  5. English, today

    coercion

Built from

  • coërceō · Latin — to restrain, coerce
  • co- · Latin — with
  • arceō · Latin — to shut in, enclose

Middle English cohercioun, from Old French cohercion, from Latin coërcitiō (“magisterial coercion”), from past participle coercitus of coërceō (“to restrain, coerce”), from co- (“with”) + arceō (“to shut in, enclose”); see coerce.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practise this word

coercion in the wild

  • Common-law systems recognize duress as a defense to criminal liability when an individual commits an offense under coercion.

    Coercion

  • Although the concepts of coercion and persuasion are similar, various factors distinguish the two.

    Coercion

  • In computer science, type conversion, type casting, type coercion, and type juggling are different ways of changing an expression from one data type to another.

    Type conversion

  • Currently, there is debate surrounding the proper approach to coercion in linguistics, including systemic coercion versus language-user coercion and a semantic perspective versus pragmatic perspective, among others.

    Coercion (linguistics)

  • Intimidation is a tactic used between conflicting parties to make the other timid or psychologically insecure for coercion or control.

    Threat

1 / 3

From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.

Related words

the arceō family

coercioncoercearcane

coercion — used about once every 7,814 pages · #10,994 · point at the bar for the others