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forcibly

UK/ˈfɔːsəbli/US/ˈfɔːsəbli/
adverbB2+Occasional — familiar, but not everyday · #9,524 of 15,258leans written

Forcibly means by the use of physical force. Forcibly removed, forcibly detained, forcibly displaced.

It is the word used in reports and in law, and forcibly displaced is the standard term for people driven from their homes. Note that it is not the same as forcefully, which describes vigour of manner rather than actual force.

Definitions of forcibly

  1. 1adverbforciblyBy the use of physical force.B2+

    “The protesters who refused to leave were forcibly removed by police.”

forcibly is a manner.

Where it comes from

Forcible plus -ly, from Old French forcible, from force, from Latin fortis, strong.

  1. Middle English

    forceably

  2. English, today

    forcibly

From Middle English forceably, equivalent to forcible + -ly.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practise this word

forcibly in the wild

  • An estimated 100 million people around the world were forcibly displaced by the end of 2022, with the majority coming from the Global South.

    Forced displacement

  • After the Cherokee War of 1839, the Cherokee communities in Texas were once again forcibly removed to Indian Territory in present-day Oklahoma.

    Texas Cherokees

  • Another factor causing squatting has been displacement, since during the Algerian War of 1954 until 1962 up to 2.5 million people were forcibly resettled.

    Squatting in Algeria

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

  • force
  • forceful
  • forcible