ppl. a. [f. FORCE v.1 + -ED1.]
1. Subjected to violence.
1621. G. Sandys, Ovid’s Met., I. 704.
| There [she] stopt; implores the liquid Sisters aid, | |
| To change her shape, and pitty a forc’t Maid. | |
| Ibid., III. 694. | |
| Goe, seruants, take him hence: let his forc’t breath | |
| Expire in grones: and torture him to death. |
2. Compelled, imposed, or exacted by force; enforced, compulsory; not spontaneous, voluntary, or optional. † Forced man: a pressed man.
1576. A. Fleming, A Panoplie of Epistles, 261. A sentence, wherein is declared the merite of free obedience and forced duetie.
1621. G. Sandys, Ovid’s Met., II. 107.
| To this alone, I giue a forc’t consent: | |
| No honour, but a true-nam’d punishment. |
1661. Papers on Alter. Prayer-bk., 77. They had many Lyturgies in one Princes Dominion, and those alterable, and not forced.
1702. Dennis, Comic. Gallant, 49. Make it your business to gain the Heart of your mistress, as well as the consent of her Parents, for be certain that a forced Marriage is but a lawful Rape.
1734. trans. Rollin’s Anc. Hist. (1827), VI. XV. xiii. 205. Do not imagine that those whom thou conquerest can love thee; for there is no such thing as friendship between a master and his slave, and a forced peace is soon followed by a war.
1748. Anson’s Voy., I. iii. 28. The native Spaniards being no strangers to the dissatisfaction of their forced men, treated both those, the English prisoners and the Indians, with great insolence and barbarity.
1781. Gibbon, Decl. & F., III. 110. Oppressive taxes, scandalous bribery, immoderate fines, unjust confiscations, forced or fictitious testaments, by which the tyrant despoiled of their lawful inheritance the children of strangers, or enemies.
1798. Nelson, 27 Jan., in Nicolas Disp. (1845), III. 3–4. There ought to be the greatest difference made between a forced man and the man who voluntarily offers his life to preserve his Country.
1812. Byron, Ch. Har., II. vii.
| There no forced banquet claims the sated guest, | |
| But Silence spreads the couch of ever welcome rest. |
18[?]. R. C. Browne, Milton’s Poems, Introd. p. li. In little more than eighteen months (in the interval, that is, from March 1626 to July 1627, when the system of forced loans was in full operation) Charles himself spent nearly 30,000l. in jewellery alone.
1866. Crump, Banking, vii. 145. On account of the forced paper currency, the exchange on Vienna is, at the present moment (May 31, 1866), 13.20 to 13.30.
1872. Yeats, Growth Comm., I. v. 35. A stigma was cast upon industry by the forced labour of slaves.
b. Forced move: in a game, one rendered inevitable by the action of the adversary or the position of the piece. Cf. forced put, FORCE-PUT.
1890. R. F. Green, Chess, 31. The capture of a Pawn en passant is a forced move, if none other be possible.
3. Produced or maintained with effort; strained. Forced march: ‘one in which the marching power of the troops is forced or exerted beyond the ordinary limit’ (Adm. Smyth).
1596. Shaks., 1 Hen. IV., III. i. 131.
| I had rather heare a Brazen Candlestick turn’d, | |
| Or a dry Wheele grate on the Axle-tree, | |
| And that would set my teeth nothing an edge, | |
| Nothing so much, as mincing Poetrie; | |
| ’Tis like the forc’t gate of a shuffling Nagge. |
1677. Yarranton, Eng. Improv., 132. No forc’t-hast; but Thrashing, and carrying the Corn to the Granary in times wherein his Servants have leisure.
1769. W. Robertson, Chas. V., III. VII. 39. The dauphin detached eight thousand men to Paris, which revived the courage of the affrighted citizens; he threw a strong garrison into Meaux, and by a forced march got into Fertè, between the Imperialists and the capital.
1825. Bentham, Ration. Rew., 271. If the constraint is increased, the evil will grow worse, the constraint in fact can only act upon the existing stock; this being sold at a forced price, the merchant will take care not to replace it.
1840. Thirlwall, Greece, VII. liv. 38. Alexander allowed his men a short rest, and then, by a forced night-march, reached the Hydraotes at daybreak.
1889. Milford, Pocket Dict. Mining, Forced production, to work a mine so as to make it produce a greater output than can be maintained.
b. In literary usage: Strained, distorted. Cf. FORCE v.1 3 b.
1583. Fulke, Defence, i. § 52. 67. Neither doth Caluine (as you say untruly) thinke it a forced translation.
1678. Cudworth, Intell. Syst., 309. The Greek Etymologies of this word, seem to be all of them either Trifling and Frivolous, or Violent and Forced.
1724. A. Collins, Gr. Chr. Relig., 173. Their application of the prophesies in the Old Testament to Jesus, which, he said, agreed to a thousand other persons with equal or more probability than to him, and were apply’d by forc’d interpretations.
1782. Priestley, Corrupt. Chr., I. II. 163. What he says upon the occasion, may, without any forced construction, be turned against this favourite opinion.
1812. Woodhouse, Astron., xxxvi. 360. Without any forced analogies or violation of the proprieties of language, it is a sufficient reason for classing these phenomena together, that it is mathematically convenient so to do.
c. Of actions, demeanor, gestures, etc.: Affected, artificial, constrained, unnatural.
1621. Wither, Motto, B j a.
| For much I hate the forced Apish tricks, | |
| Of those our home-disdaining Politicks. |
1687. Dryden, Hind & P., III. 78.
| Her forc’d civilities, her faint embrace, | |
| Affected kindness with an alter’d face. |
1891. C. T. C. James, Rom. Rigmarole, 80. In spite of her forced calmness.
† 4. Artificially made or prepared; as opposed to natural. Chiefly of soils. Obs.
1622. Fletcher, Beggar’s Bush, II. i.
| Call in your crutches, wooden legs, false bellies, | |
| Forc’d eyes and teeth, with your dead arms. |
1650. Fuller, A Pisgah-sight of Palestine, III. x. 433. It was particularly called Solomons-Porch, because the very bottome, or floor thereof (being forced ground) was by much expence made by Solomon, and gained with great art and industry.
1664. Evelyn, Kal Hort. (1729), 200. Pot them [Indian Tuberoses] in natural (not forc’d) Earth.
1688. Lond. Gaz., No. 2363/4. Lost … a light bay Gelding … 6 years old, with a forced mark on the Forehead.
5. Of plants, a crop, etc.: Made to bear, or produced, out of the proper season. Cf. FORCE v.1 12.
1695. Congreve, Love for L., V. ii. I’m none of those, none of your forced trees, that pretend to blossom in the fall, and bud when they should bring forth fruit.
1866. Mrs. Gaskell, Wives & Dau., xxviii. Our forced strawberries are just ready.
† 6. Fortified, made strong against attack. Obs.
1548. Hall, Chron., Hen. V. (an. 6), 59 b. And beside that chayne he sette vp a new forced bridge, sufficient bothe for cariage and passage.
1602. Warner, Alb. Eng., Epit. (1612), 356. Besides Seuerus his forced vallie, with other strong and huge labors and fabrications, were reared at seuerall times two walles.
