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Compulsory vs Peremptory - What's the difference?

compulsory | peremptory |

As adjectives the difference between compulsory and peremptory

is that compulsory is required; obligatory; mandatory while peremptory is (legal) precluding debate or expostulation; not admitting of question or appeal; positive; absolute; decisive; conclusive; final.

As a noun compulsory

is something that is compulsory or required.

compulsory

English

Adjective

(en adjective)
  • Required; obligatory; mandatory.
  • * 1827 , A. D. Jr., Edinburgh Medical and Surgical Journal , A. and C. Black, page 212:
    • They are entirely private concerns, established by individual teachers, and attendance upon them is no more compulsory than attendance on our dispensaries.
  • * 1996 , (Ugo Pagano), Democracy and Efficiency in the Economic Enterprise , page 73:
    • Some might agree that membership in the firm is perhaps more compulsory than membership in a municipality, but balk at applying the analogy to the nation.
  • * {{quote-magazine, date=2013-07-19, author=(Peter Wilby)
    • , volume=189, issue=6, page=30, magazine=(The Guardian Weekly) , title= Finland spreads word on schools , passage=Imagine a country where children do nothing but play until they start compulsory schooling at age seven. Then, without exception, they attend comprehensives until the age of 16. Charging school fees is illegal, and so is sorting pupils into ability groups by streaming or setting.}}
  • Having the power of compulsion; constraining.

    • Synonyms

    * mandatory

    Antonyms

    * (required) optional

    Noun

    (compulsories)
  • Something that is compulsory or required.
  • * {{quote-news, year=2008, date=March 22, author=The Associated Press, title=French Victory in Ice Dance, work=New York Times citation
    • , passage=Delobel and Schoenfelder failed to win the free dance, but they had built a big lead in the compulsories and the original dance. }}

    peremptory

    English

    Adjective

    (en adjective)
  • (legal) Precluding debate or expostulation; not admitting of question or appeal; positive; absolute; decisive; conclusive; final.
  • * 1596 , Francis Bacon, Maxims of the Law , II:
    • there is no reason but if any of the outlawries be indeed without error, but it should be a peremptory plea to the person in a writ of error, as well as in any other action.
  • Positive in opinion or judgment; absolutely certain, overconfident, unwilling to hear any debate or argument (especially in a pejorative sense); dogmatic.
  • * 2003 , Andrew Marr, The Guardian , 6 Jan 03:
    • He marched under a placard reading "End Bossiness Now" but decided it was a little too peremptory , not quite British, so changed the slogan on subsequent badges, to "End Bossiness Soon."
  • (obsolete) Firmly determined, resolute; obstinate, stubborn.
  • Accepting no refusal or disagreement; imperious, dictatorial.
  • *
    • less surprising than that he had been depressed by a book. Something was making him nibble at the edge of stale ideas as if his sturdy physical egotism no longer nourished his peremptory heart.
  • * 1999 , Anthony Howard, The Guardian , 2 Jan 99:
    • Though today (surveying that yellowing document) I shudder at the peremptory tone of the instructions I gave, Alastair - in that same volume in which I get chastised for my coverage of the Macmillan rally - was generous enough to remark that my memorandum became 'an office classic'.

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