Wrest vs Compel - What's the difference?
wrest | compel | Related terms |
To pull or twist violently.
To obtain by pulling or violent force.
* Milton
(figuratively) To seize.
* Macaulay
* 1912 : (Edgar Rice Burroughs), (Tarzan of the Apes), Chapter 12
(figuratively) To twist, pervert, distort.
* Bible, Exodus xxiii. 6
* South
* 1597 , Shakespeare,
To tune with a wrest, or key.
The act of wresting; a wrench or twist; distortion.
(obsolete) Active or motive power.
(music) A key to tune a stringed instrument.
* Sir Walter Scott
A partition in a water wheel by which the form of the buckets is determined.
(transitive, archaic, literally) To drive together, round up (rfex)
To overpower; to subdue.
* 1917 , , King Coal , ch. 16,
To force, constrain or coerce.
* 1600 , , Julius Caesar , act 5, sc. 1,
* Hallam
To exact, extort, (make) produce by force.
* Shakespeare
* 1912 , , Sky Island , ch. 14,
(obsolete) To force to yield; to overpower; to subjugate.
* Dryden
* Tennyson
(obsolete) To gather or unite in a crowd or company.
* Dryden
(obsolete) To call forth; to summon.
* Spenser
In obsolete terms the difference between wrest and compel
is that wrest is active or motive power while compel is to call forth; to summon.As verbs the difference between wrest and compel
is that wrest is to pull or twist violently while compel is to drive together, round up.As a noun wrest
is the act of wresting; a wrench or twist; distortion.wrest
English
Verb
(en verb)- He wrested the remote control from my grasp and changed the channel.
- Did not she / Of Timna first betray me, and reveal / The secret wrested from me
- They instantly wrested the government out of the hands of Hastings.
- There was one of the tribe of Tarzan who questioned his authority, and that was Terkoz, the son of Tublat, but he so feared the keen knife and the deadly arrows of his new lord that he confined the manifestation of his objections to petty disobediences and irritating mannerisms; Tarzan knew, however, that he but waited his opportunity to wrest the kingship from him by some sudden stroke of treachery, and so he was ever on his guard against surprise.
- Thou shalt not wrest the judgment of thy poor.
- their arts of wresting , corrupting, and false interpreting the holy text
- And, I beseech you,
- Wrest once the law to your authority;
- To do a great right do a little wrong,
- And curb this cruel devil of his will.
Noun
(en noun)- (Hooker)
- (Spenser)
- The minstrel wore round his neck a silver chain, by which hung the wrest , or key, with which he tuned his harp.
Derived terms
* wrest pin * wrest plank (Webster 1913)Anagrams
*compel
English
Verb
- She had one of those perfect faces, which irresistibly compel the soul of a man.
- Logic compels''' the wise, while fools feel '''compelled by emotions.
- Against my will, / As Pompey was, am I compell’d to set / Upon one battle all our liberties.
- Wolsey compelled the people to pay up the whole subsidy at once.
- Commissions, which compel from each / The sixth part of his substance.
- The Queen has nothing but the power to execute the laws, to adjust grievances and to compel order.
- Easy sleep their weary limbs compelled .
- I compel all creatures to my will.
- in one troop compelled
- She had this knight from far compelled .
- (Chapman)