† 1. Compulsion; application of force. Obs.
1702. C. Mather, Magn. Chr., VII. iv. (1852), 532. Some of our churches used, it may be, a little too much of cogency towards the brethren.
2. The quality of being cogent; power of impelling or constraining; force (moral or logical).
1750. Johnson, Rambler, No. 70, ¶ 5. The power of desire, the cogency of distress.
1788. T. Jefferson, Writ. (1859), II. 514. Another motive of still more cogency on my mind.
1853. Robertson, Serm., Ser. III. i. (1872), 10. The motive … would appear to many far-fetched and of small cogency.
b. esp. Power of compelling conviction or assent, convincing quality, forcibleness, logical or persuasive force.
1690. Locke, Hum. Und., IV. vii. § 1. Maxims and Axioms … because they are self-evident, have been supposed innate, although nobody … ever went about to shew the Reason … of their clearness or cogency.
1759. Johnson, Rasselas, xviii. Feeling the cogency of his own arguments.
1772. Burke, Corr. (1844), I. 366. He argued much, and truly not without cogency upon the subject.
1863. E. V. Neale, Anal. Th. & Nat., 203. To escape from the cogency of our own logic.
c. concr. (with pl.) A convincing argument, a forcible expression. rare.
1847. L. Hunt, Men, Women, & B., I. iv. 44. Rustical cogencies of oo and ou, the intelligible jargon of the Corydon or Thyrsis of Chalk-Ditch.
1851. Sir F. Palgrave, Norm. & Eng., I. 194. Maxims admitted as self-evident truths, undiscussed cogencies.
