Definition of "force" []

• The capacity to do work or cause physical change; energy, strength, or active power: the force of an explosion. (noun)
• Power made operative against resistance; exertion: use force in driving a nail. (noun)
• The use of physical power or violence to compel or restrain: a confession obtained by force. (noun)
• Intellectual power or vigor, especially as conveyed in writing or speech. (noun)
• Moral strength. (noun)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "What we want to do is to increase the attractive force, in order to prevent this tangential motion -- to increase the _force of gravity_."
• "The dynamical force, that which produces motion, is the centripetal force, drawing the body continually from the tangential direction, toward the center; and what is termed centrifugal force is merely the resistance which the body opposes to this deflection, _precisely like any other resistance to a force_."
• "At present I will proceed to consider the second of the forces, or manifestations of force, which are developed in moving bodies -- _centrifugal force_."