coercion

See also: coerción

English

Alternative forms

• coërcion (chiefly dated)

Etymology

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

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /koʊˈɜːʃən/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /koʊˈɝʒən/, /koʊˈɝʃən/

• Audio (US):

  (file)

Noun

coercion (countable and uncountable, plural coercions)

1. (uncountable) Actual or threatened force for the purpose of compelling action by another person; the act of coercing.
   • 1947 March 12, Harry S. Truman, 5:24 from the start, in MP72-14 Excerpt - Truman Doctrine Speech‎, Harry S. Truman Presidential Library and Museum, National Archives Identifier: 595162:

     One of the primary objectives of the foreign policy of the United States is the creation of conditions in which we and other nations will be able to work out a way of life free from coercion.

2. (law, uncountable) Use of physical or moral force to compel a person to do something, or to abstain from doing something, thereby depriving that person of the exercise of free will.
3. (countable) A specific instance of coercing.
4. (programming, countable) Conversion of a value of one data type to a value of another data type.
5. (linguistics, semantics) The process by which the meaning of a word or other linguistic element is reinterpreted to match the grammatical context.
   • 2008, Oliver Bott, “Doing It Again and Again May Be Difficult, But It Depends on What You Are Doing”, in Proceedings of the 27th West Coast Conference on Formal Linguistics‎, page 63:

     But often the pieces of information do not fit together and have to be shifted in meaning to confirm with the rest of the sentence. These shifts are called coercion

   • 2016, Susanne Mohr, “From Accra to Nairobi – the use of pluralized mass nouns in East and West African postcolonial Englishes”, in Daniel Schmidt-Brücken, Susanne Schuster, Marina Wienberg, editors, Aspects of (Post)Colonial Linguistics, Berlin: DeGruyter, →OCLC, page 161:

     ...a conversion of mass nouns into count readings according to sorter and portion coercion is only possible if the denotation of a mass noun already comprises minimal parts into which the noun can be subdivided.

6. (libertarianism) The initiation or threat of conflict; aggression.

Antonyms

• noncoercion

Hyponyms

• type coercion

Derived terms

• coercionary
• coercionist

 

Related terms

• coerce
• coercer
• coercible
• coercitive
• coercive

 

Translations

actual or threatened force for the purpose of compelling action by another person

Albanian: shtrëngim (sq) m Arabic: قهر, قسر, غصب, عنت, دفع (ar), جبر (ar), اِضْطِرَار (iḍṭirār), إِلْزَام (ʔilzām), إِكْرَاه (ar) (ʔikrāh), إرْغَام (ʔirḡām), إِجْبَار (ʔijbār) Armenian: հարկադրում (hy) (harkadrum), բռնադատում (hy) (bṙnadatum) Belarusian: пры́мус m (prýmus) Bulgarian: принуда (bg) (prinuda), насилие (bg) (nasilie) Catalan: coerció f Cherokee: please add this translation if you can Chinese: Mandarin: 強迫／强迫 (zh) (qiǎngpò), 威迫 (zh) (wēipò) Czech: donucení n Danish: tvang (da) Dhivehi: please add this translation if you can Dutch: dwang (nl) m Esperanto: please add this translation if you can Estonian: sundimine, sund Finnish: pakko (fi), pakkokeino (fi) French: coercition (fr) f Galician: coerción (gl) f Georgian: ძალდატანება (ʒaldaṭaneba) German: Zwang (de) m Greek: εξαναγκασμός (el) m (exanagkasmós), καταπίεση (el) f (katapíesi) Hebrew: כפייה (he) f (kfi'a) Hindi: ज़ोर-जबरदस्ती (zor-jabardastī) Hungarian: kényszer (hu) Indonesian: paksaan (id) Italian: coercizione (it) Japanese: 強制 (ja) (きょうせい, kyōsei), 威圧 (ja) (いあつ, iatsu), 強迫 (ja) (きょうはく, kyōhaku) Khmer: ការបង្ខិតបង្ខំ (kaa bɑŋkʰət bɑŋkʰɑm), ពលការ (pʊəl kaa), ការសង្កត់សង្កិន (kaa sɑŋkɑt sɑŋkən) Korean: 강제 (ko) (gangje), 강압 (ko) (gang'ap) Latin: coactus m Latvian: piespiešana f, spiediens m Lithuanian: prievarta f, privertimas m Macedonian: принуда f (prinuda) Maori: uruhanga Mirandese: please add this translation if you can Mongolian: албадлага (mn) (albadlaga) Norwegian: tvang (no) Polish: przymus (pl) m Portuguese: coação (pt) f, coerção (pt) f Romanian: coerciție (ro) f Russian: принужде́ние (ru) n (prinuždénije), наси́лие (ru) n (nasílije) Scottish Gaelic: ceannsachadh m Serbo-Croatian: prisila (sh) f, prinuda (sh) Slovak: donútenie n, prinútenie n Slovene: prisila f Spanish: coerción (es) f Swedish: betvingande (sv), tvång (sv) n Turkish: zorlama (tr) Ukrainian: при́мус (uk) m (prýmus) Volapük: please add this translation if you can Yiddish: צוואַנג m (tsvang)

use of force to compel

Arabic: إِكْرَاه (ar) m (ʔikrāh) Finnish: pakottaminen (fi) Galician: coerción (gl) f German: Nötigung (de) f Greek: εξαναγκασμός (el) m (exanagkasmós) Hindi: प्रपीड़न (hi) (prapīṛan), ज़ोर-जबरदस्ती (zor-jabardastī) Hungarian: kényszerítés (hu) Khmer: ការបង្ខិតបង្ខំ (kaa bɑŋkʰət bɑŋkʰɑm), ពលការ (pʊəl kaa), ការសង្កត់សង្កិន (kaa sɑŋkɑt sɑŋkən) Latin: coactus m Portuguese: coerção (pt) f Romanian: coercitare f Russian: принужде́ние (ru) n (prinuždénije) Scottish Gaelic: ceannsachadh m Serbo-Croatian: prisila (sh) f Turkish: cebir (tr), icbar (tr)

instance of coercing

Catalan: coerció Finnish: pakottaminen (fi) Galician: coerción (gl) f Greek: εξαναγκασμός (el) m (exanagkasmós) Hungarian: kényszerítés (hu) Khmer: ការបង្ខិតបង្ខំ (kaa bɑŋkʰət bɑŋkʰɑm), ការសង្កត់សង្កិន (kaa sɑŋkɑt sɑŋkən) Serbo-Croatian: prisila (sh) f, prinuda (sh) f

computing: conversion of a value of one data type to another

Esperanto: altipigo Finnish: pakottaminen (fi) French: coercition (fr) f Hungarian: konverzió (hu)

Trivia

One of three common words ending in -cion, which are coercion, scion, and suspicion.^[1][2]

References

1. Notes and Queries, Vol. VI, No. 10, 1889, October, p. 365
2. Editor and Publisher, Volume 9, 1909, p. 89

• “coercion”, in The Century Dictionary […], New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911, →OCLC.
• “coercion”, in Dictionary.com Unabridged, Dictionary.com, LLC, 1995–present.
• “coercion”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.
• coercion on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

Anagrams

• criocone