Fōrce1, n.
n. [Fr. force, Pr. forsa, It. forza, Pg. força, Sp. fuerza, L. Lat. forcia, fortia, from Lat. fortis, strong.]
Sense 1. Strength or energy of body or mind; active power; vigor; might; often an unusual degree of strength or energy; capacity of exercising an influence or producing an effect; especially, power to persuade, or convince, or impose obligation; pertinency; validity; special signification; as, the force of an appeal, an argument, a contract, or a term.
He was, in the full force of the words, a good man. Macaulay.
Sense 2. Power exerted against will or consent; compulsory power; violence; coercion.
Which now they hold by force, and not by right. Shak.
Sense 3. Strength or power for war; hence, a body of land or naval combatants, with their appurtenances, ready for action; an armament; troops; warlike array; — often in the plural; hence, a body of men prepared for action in other ways; as, the laboring force of a plantation.
Lucius is general of the forces. Shak.
Sense 4. A waterfall; a cascade. [Obs., or Prov. Eng.]
To see the falls or force of the river Kent. Gray.
Sense 5. (Law.) (a.) Strength or power exercised without law, or contrary to law, upon persons or things; violence. (b.) Validity; efficacy. Burrill.
Sense 6. (Physics.) Any action between two bodies which changes, or tends to change, their relative condition as to rest or motion; or, more generally, which changes, or tends to change, any physical relation between them, whether mechanical, thermal, chemical, electrical, magnetic, or of any other kind; as, the force of gravity; cohesive force; centrifugal force.
Power differs from force strictly in having relation to work to be effected. The tractive force of a locomotive is the steam-pressure exerted on the rails; the tractive power is the force considered as exerted in giving motion to a load.
In force, or of force, of unimpaired efficacy; valid; of full virtue; not suspended or reversed. “Shall, then, my father's will be of no force?” Shak. “A testament is of force after men are dead.” Heb. ix. 17. — No force, no matter of urgency or consequence; no account; hence, to do no force, to make no account of; not to heed. [Obs.]
Chaucer.
Synonyms— Strength; vigor; might; energy; stress; vehemence; violence; compulsion; coercion; constraint; coercion. — FORCE, STRENGTH. Strength looks rather to power as an inward capability or energy. Thus we speak of the strength of timber, bodily strength, mental strength, strength of emotion, &c. Force, on the other hand, looks more to the outward; as, the force of momentum, force of circumstances, force of habit, &c. We do, indeed, speak of strength of will and force of will; but even here the former may lean toward the internal tenacity of purpose, and the latter toward the outward expression of it in action. But, though the two words do in a few cases touch thus closely on each other, there is, on the whole, a marked distinction between our use of force and strength. “Force is the name given, in mechanical science, to whatever produces, or can produce, motion.” Nichol.
Thy tears are of no force To mollify this flinty man. Hayward.
More huge in strength than wise in works he was. Spenser.
Adam and first matron Eve Had ended now their orisons, and found Strength added from above, new hope to spring Out of despair. Milton.