Now dial. Also 7–8 forced put [perh. forced put was a term of some game, = ‘forced move’; see FORCED ppl. a. 2 b and PUT.] An action rendered unavoidable by circumstances; a ‘Hobson’s choice.’
1657. G. Starkey, Helmont’s Vind., 328. To give poysons to purge, in expectation that Nature being forced to play a desperate game, and reduced to a forc’t put, may winne that by adventure, which you by all your Art cannot ascertain her with safe and speedy remedies.
1662. Sir A. Mervyn, Speech on Irish Affairs (13 Feb.), 3. It must be therefore a forc’t Put, that presseth us on to this address.
c. 1680. Hickeringill, The History of Whiggism, Wks. 1716, I. 118. Sometimes the Laws being put in Execution at a force-put, and then again slackning the Reins and following natural inclination.
1748–61. Richardson, Clarissa H. (1811), VII. 63. It is truly, to be ingenuous, a forced put: for my passions are so wound up, that I am obliged either to laugh or cry.
1772. Nugent, trans. Hist. Friar Gerund, I. 526. He thought that it might pass for a case of necessity, or forced-put.
1876. in N. & Q., Ser. V. V. 266/2. A tradesman of this place [Torquay] told me recently that he had left his house very early that day, ‘but not from choice, ’t was a force-put’: meaning that his business had rendered it necessary for him to do so.
1892. Northumb. Gloss., Force-put.
