Synonyms:
constrained, forced, strained
Meaning: lacking spontaneity; not natural; "a constrained smile"; "forced heartiness"; "a strained smile"
Usage examples
I feel constrained to declare
Constrained by the sober exercise of judgment
He seated himself at her side, but he was unusually constrained.
"The diary of Hauptmann Fritz Schneider!" repeated Tarzan in a constrained voice.
'Can you promise to keep a little love for me all that time?' he asked with a constrained smile.
Finding that arrows and club made no impression upon the thick skin of the lion, the hero was constrained to trust entirely to his own thews and sinews.
Inconsequent words, but the sergeant meant to remember them, for with their utterance, a change passed over the judge; and his manner, which had been constrained and hurried during his attempted description, became at once more natural, and therefore more courteous.
And all who had seen him selling stuffs in the linendrapers' bazar marvelled how his soul could have consented thereto, considering the nobility of his spirit and the loftiness of his dignity; but it was his love and inclination to the King's daughter that to this had constrained him.
There were some gentry whom the populace had constrained to take part with them, and who kept a secret correspondence with Suffolk. They informed him, that resentment against the king's reply was the chief cause which retained the malecontents in arms, and that a milder answer would probably suppress the rebellion.