forcible

adjectiveC1Rare in speech; mostly a word you read · #13,240 of 15,258leans written

Forcible means done by force, or carrying great force. Forcible entry, forcible removal, a forcible argument.

In law it is the important word: forcible entry means breaking in, and it distinguishes a burglary from walking through an open door. Note forceful, which means vigorous rather than violent — a forceful argument persuades and a forcible one would be odd. The pair is easy to confuse.

Definitions of forcible

1adjectiveforcibleDone by force.C1
“Human rights groups condemned the forcible removal of families from their homes.”

forcible is a quality of force.

Where it comes from

Old French forcible comes from forcier, to force, from Latin fortis, strong. Fort and effort come from the same strength.

Old French
forcible
Middle English
forcible
English, today
forcible

Built from

forcier · Old French — to conquer by force

From Middle English forcible, forsable, from Old French forcible, from forcier (“to conquer by force”), equivalent to force + -ible.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practised in A Song of Ice and Fire

Practise this word

forcible in the wild

Regime change is the partly forcible or coercive replacement of one government regime with another.
Regime change
A Halligan bar (also known as a Halligan tool or Hooligan tool) is a forcible entry tool used by firefighters.
Halligan bar
The pig can be married with a Halligan to create a forcible entry system as an alternative to the classic axe and Halligan combination.
The pig (tool)
The Kelly tool is a tool used in fire and rescue service for forcible entry and other prying and striking tasks.
Kelly tool
From 1051 until 1091 it was under the forcible control of Seville, by Abbad II al-Mu'tadid.
Taifa of Saltés and Huelva

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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

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