compel

verb

1. (archaic, literally, transitive)To drive together, round up.

   “The shepherds compelled the stray sheep into the fold as night began to fall.”

2. (transitive)To overpower; to subdue.

   “She had one of those perfect faces, which irresistibly compel the soul of a man.”

3. (transitive)To force, constrain, or coerce.

   “Logic compels the wise, while fools feel compelled by emotions.”

   “Congratulations, your courage compels respect.”

   “Against my will, / As Pompey was, am I compell’d to set / Upon one battle all our liberties.”

   “Wolsey […] compelled the people to pay up the whole subsidy at once.”

   “To me it seems that extensive investment in relatively low-powered units may have the same ultimate result of motive power shortage as that which afflicts the London Midland Region today, and which has compelled the re-engining of some of the earlier multiple-unit diesel train sets.”

4. (transitive)To forcefully or powerfully motivate (a course of action).

   “As the novel progresses, it picks up a propulsive energy, the kind that compels you to keep reading straight through to the end.”

5. (transitive)To have a strong, irresistible force (on someone or something).
6. (transitive)To exact, extort, (make) produce by force.

   “Commissions, which compel from each / The sixth part of his substance.”

   “The Queen has nothing but the power to execute the laws, to adjust grievances and to compel order.”

7. (obsolete)To force to yield; to overpower; to subjugate.

   “Easy sleep their weary limbs compell'd.”

   “And I will fetch you forage from all fields, / For I compel all creatures to my will.”

8. (obsolete)To gather or unite in a crowd or company.

   “in one troop compell'd”

9. (obsolete)To call forth; to summon.

   “She had this knight from far compeld.”

   “the pow'rs that I compel / Shall throw thee hence, and make thy head run ope the gates of hel”