compelling

1. 1
   adjective

   So interesting that it captures and holds your attention completely.

   The documentary's compelling footage kept viewers glued to the screen.

   Few mysteries are as compelling as an unsolved disappearance.

   Similargripping

   Oppositeboring, dull, tedious, uninteresting

   Note

   The sense of stories, footage and screens: a compelling novel is one you cannot put down, and its nearest synonym is gripping. Web companies boast of "creating compelling content", a phrase Oliver Burkeman turns over in The Guardian Weekly (2013) while noting how profitable distraction is. Keep it apart from the "convincing" meaning. Gripping holds your attention, while convincing wins your agreement.

2. 2
   adjective

   Convincing enough to make someone believe or agree with you.

   The prosecutor presented compelling evidence of fraud.

   His compelling case for reform won over the committee.

   Similarconvincing

   Oppositeunconvincing, weak, flimsy, implausible

   Note

   Here the force in compel is aimed at the mind: an argument of this kind pushes a listener toward belief rather than action. It pairs naturally with nouns of reasoning, as in a compelling argument or a compelling case, and convincing is its closest synonym. To tell it from the "gripping" meaning, look at the noun: a compelling story holds attention, while a compelling case wins agreement.

3. 3
   adjective

   Strong and forceful, making someone feel they have to do something.

   A compelling sense of duty drove him back to the front lines.

   The survivors felt a compelling urge to share what they had seen.

   Similarurgent, pressing

   Oppositeweak, faint

   Note

   Of the adjectives, this is the closest to the verb's own push. Compel can mean to forcefully motivate a course of action, and a compelling reason is one that does exactly that. Urgent and pressing are its neighbors, though they lean toward haste while this leans toward force. It sits naturally in statements of what it would take: "I would need a very compelling reason to leave."

4. 4
   verb

   Present participle of compel.

   The court order is compelling him to pay damages.

   Economic pressures are compelling many families to relocate.

   Note

   The verb form always has someone or something on the receiving end, because compel is transitive. Pressures are compelling families to move, and a court is compelling payment. It usually takes an object plus a to-infinitive. The same spelling, compel plus -ing with the l doubled, also serves as an adjective, so in the "pressing" adjective of "a compelling reason" nobody is being forced at all.

5. 5
   noununcountable

   An act of compulsion; the forcing or obliging of someone to do something.

   The compelling of soldiers into distant wars stirred public anger.

   Critics condemned the compelling of workers to sign unfair contracts.

   Similarcoercion, compulsion, forcing

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