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Definition of "coercive" []

  • Characterized by or inclined to coercion. (adjective)

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.

Use "coercive" in a sentence
  • "Among other things, they suggest that even now, under your government, there are what they call coercive measures by official agencies, including religious police organizations, that require Afghans to follow specific religious practices and require women to conform to stringent codes of dress, movement and behavior."
  • "There's a report in the L.A. Times today that says one of the things the administration is looking at is what they describe as coercive inspections, which I guess means the inspectors would go back into Iraq but with military forces of some sort backing them up."
  • "However, in practice such cases rarely are, so the government is considering whether the legal definition should be widened to expressly include what it calls "coercive control"."