Capacity of exercising an influence or producing an effect; strength or energy of body or mind; active power; vigor; might; often, an unusual degree of strength or energy; especially, power to persuade, or convince, or impose obligation; pertinency; validity; special signification; as, the force of an appeal, an argument, a contract, or a term.
Power exerted against will or consent; compulsory power; violence; coercion; as, by force of arms; to take by force.
Strength or power exercised without law, or contrary to law, upon persons or things; violence.
To constrain to do or to forbear, by the exertion of a power not resistible; to compel by physical, moral, or intellectual means; to coerce; as, masters force slaves to labor.
To compel, as by strength of evidence; as, to force conviction on the mind.
To do violence to; to overpower, or to compel by violence to one's will; especially, to ravish; to violate; to commit rape upon.
To obtain, overcome, or win by strength; to take by violence or struggle; specifically, to capture by assault; to storm, as a fortress; as, to force the castle; to force a lock.
To impel, drive, wrest, extort, get, etc., by main strength or violence; -- with a following adverb, as along, away, from, into, through, out, etc.
To exert to the utmost; to urge; hence, to strain; to urge to excessive, unnatural, or untimely action; to produce by unnatural effort; as, to force a conceit or metaphor; to force a laugh; to force fruits.
To compel (an adversary or partner) to trump a trick by leading a suit of which he has none.
To use violence; to make violent effort; to strive; to endeavor.
To play a high ranking card, in trump or in a suit, to prevent opponent low cards to make the trick, or to set up a card in our hand or in partner's hand.
an act of aggression (as one against a person who resists); "he may accomplish by craft in the long run what he cannot do by force and violence in the short one"
The mechanical effort to accomplish a specific movement or exertion. Force may be either external (a force applied, voluntarily or involuntarily, to the surface of the body) or internal (tension within muscles, tendons, and ligaments).
in defending a hand, to play winners in a side suit that the declarer must ruff in order to gain the lead; the purpose of forcing plays is to weaken declarer's trump holding
Force can either be applied by the body (i.e. through muscular effort) or to the body. When doing 'work' the body uses muscles to generate force to allow for movement of body segments, to resist the 'force' of objects being lifted / carried, or to apply force to an object to move it. When your muscles contract they also generate 'reaction' forces in the body at the joints (e.g. shoulder, vertebrae, etc.). Force can also refer to the amount of force that is applied to the body from an external source. When using a pair of pliers the handles of the pliers press into the palm of the hand. When resting the forearm on the edge of the desk the desk exerts force on the muscles, nerves, and blood vessels in the forearm.
In the field of law, the word force has two main meanings: unlawful violence and lawful compulsion. Forced entry is an expression falling under the category of unlawful violence; in force or forced sale would be examples of expressions in the category of lawful compulsion.
