COMPULSION

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does compulsion mean? 

• COMPULSION (noun)
  The noun COMPULSION has 3 senses:

1. an urge to do or say something that might be better left undone or unsaid

2. an irrational motive for performing trivial or repetitive actions, even against your will

3. using force to cause something to occur

  Familiarity information: COMPULSION used as a noun is uncommon.

 Dictionary entry details 

• COMPULSION (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

An urge to do or say something that might be better left undone or unsaid

Classified under:

Nouns denoting goals

Synonyms:

compulsion; irresistible impulse

Context example:

he felt a compulsion to babble on about the accident

Hypernyms ("compulsion" is a kind of...):

irrational impulse (a strong spontaneous and irrational motivation)

Derivation:

compulsive (caused by or suggestive of psychological compulsion)

Sense 2

Meaning:

An irrational motive for performing trivial or repetitive actions, even against your will

Classified under:

Nouns denoting goals

Synonyms:

compulsion; obsession

Context example:

her compulsion to wash her hands repeatedly

Hypernyms ("compulsion" is a kind of...):

irrational motive (a motivation that is inconsistent with reason or logic)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "compulsion"):

onomatomania (obsession with a particular word which the person uses repeatedly or which intrudes into consciousness)

Derivation:

compulsive (a person with a compulsive disposition; someone who feels compelled to do certain things)

compulsive (caused by or suggestive of psychological compulsion)

Sense 3

Meaning:

Using force to cause something to occur

Classified under:

Nouns denoting acts or actions

Synonyms:

coercion; compulsion

Context example:

they didn't have to use coercion

Hypernyms ("compulsion" is a kind of...):

causation; causing (the act of causing something to happen)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "compulsion"):

constructive eviction; eviction (action by a landlord that compels a tenant to leave the premises (as by rendering the premises unfit for occupancy); no physical expulsion or legal process is involved)

Derivation:

compel (force somebody to do something)

 Context examples 

They got out of the way, gave trail to the grown dogs, and gave up meat to them under compulsion.

(White Fang, by Jack London)

A disorder characterized by the presence of persistent and recurrent irrational thoughts (obsessions), resulting in marked anxiety and repetitive excessive behaviors (compulsions) as a way to try to decrease that anxiety.

(Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, NCI Thesaurus)

There was in his nature a logical compulsion toward completeness.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

He drew it under the sleeve of his mulberry-coloured great-coat, and I walked on, almost upon compulsion, arm-in-arm with him.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

Compulsions include washing your hands, counting, checking on things, or cleaning.

(Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, NIH: National Institute of Mental Health)

Drug dependence - replaced the term drug addiction and is defined as a state, psychic and sometimes also physical, resulting from the interaction between a living organism and a drug, characterized by behavioral and other responses that always include a compulsion to take the drug on a continuous or periodic basis in order to experience its psychic effects, and sometimes to avoid the discomfort of its absence.

(Drug Dependence, NCI Thesaurus)

The succeeding minute he had been bothered by the ex-laundryman's presence and by the compulsion of conversation.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

“So my son took, of his own will, and on no compulsion, to the course in which he can always, when it is his pleasure, outstrip every competitor,” she pursued.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

These are called compulsions.

(Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, NIH: National Institute of Mental Health)

Her face was sad and lovely with bright things in it, bright eyes and a bright passionate mouth—but there was an excitement in her voice that men who had cared for her found difficult to forget: a singing compulsion, a whispered Listen, a promise that she had done gay, exciting things just a while since and that there were gay, exciting things hovering in the next hour.

(The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald)