Synonyms:
compulsion, irresistible_impulse
Meaning: an urge to do or say something that might be better left undone or unsaid; "he felt a compulsion to babble on about the accident"
Synonyms:
compulsion, obsession
Meaning: an irrational motive for performing trivial or repetitive actions, even against your will; "her compulsion to wash her hands repeatedly"
Synonyms:
compulsion, coercion
Meaning: using force to cause something to occur; "though pressed into rugby under compulsion I began to enjoy the game"; "they didn't have to use coercion"
Usage examples
Their attitude was not the rigid discipline of soldiers; there was no sense of compulsion about them.
And the case must be very flagrant in which its fallacy could be detected with sufficient certainty to justify the harsh expedient of compulsion.
Lord Darcy, though he pleaded compulsion, and appealed for his justification to a long life spent in the service of the crown, was beheaded on Tower Hill.
But even education works by conviction and persuasion as well as by compulsion, and it is by the former only that, when the period of education is past, the self-regarding virtues should be inculcated.