enforce
Formsenforces, enforcing, enforced
- 1To keep up, impose, or bring a rule, law, or agreement into effect, not necessarily by physical force.
Local authorities enforce parking regulations across the city center.
The new manager enforced the dress code from his very first day.
Similarimpose, apply, implement, uphold, police
Note
Strength is at the root: Middle English enforcen, from Old French enforcier and Late Latin infortiāre, built on fortis, "strong." The verb first meant making a town, a voice or an argument stronger. Today it means making rules take effect. Its objects are laws, bans and decisions, and it is common in the passive (the ban ought to be enforced). The pressure behind it may be authority alone, with no hand laid on anyone.
- 2To give added strength or force to something, such as a claim or point; to affirm or emphasize it.
The lawyer enforced her point with documents drawn from the archive.
Vivid statistics enforce an argument far better than vague assertions.
Similarreinforce, strengthen, bolster, support, underscore
- 3To compel or oblige a person or thing; to force them to act.
Hunger enforced the travelers to seek shelter in the abandoned mill.
In a few minutes I was stealthily groping my way down my own staircase, with a box of matches in my hand, enforced by scientific curiosity, but none the less armed with a stick.
1899, E. OE. Somerville, Martin RossNote
The construction is enforce someone to do something, and it often appears in the passive. Robert Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy (1624) has two kings who "were enforced to lodge in a poor cottage." Marlowe writes "enforst me to haue swum." The use lingers as late as Somerville and Ross in 1899: "enforced by scientific curiosity." Today force or compel takes this pattern.
- 4To strengthen a castle, town, or similar place with extra troops, fortifications, or defenses.
The duke enforced the border fortress with two hundred men-at-arms.
Wise commanders enforce every captured stronghold against a counterattack.
Note
A military use that has dropped out of the language. Its object is a place, such as a castle or town, and what is added is men or walls. Modern English says reinforce here, a word built on the same idea of making strong. Keep enforce in this meaning to historical writing. A modern reader will take it as the rule-keeping verb.
- 5To intensify something, making it stronger or adding force to it.
Note
Strength measured as intensity: a blaze that grows fiercer, a blow that lands harder. The verb takes a direct object. Its nearest living relative is the "emphasize" meaning, which kept the rhetorical side of the idea and dropped the physical one. Where older texts use it of fire, wind or feeling, modern English says intensify or heighten.
- 6To give force to something; to strengthen, invigorate, or energize it.
Bright music and warm wine enforce the dancers through the long night.
The general's words enforced the weary troops before the final charge.
Note
Edmund Burke still reaches for it in 1796, writing "not contradicting, but enforcing" sentiments of humanity. The pairing makes the verb the opposite of undercutting. Its objects are arguments, requests and sentiments, the same ground as the "emphasize" meaning, where the idea lives on. When the thing strengthened is a person or a body, modern English says invigorate or energize.
- 7To urge strongly; to press hard; to lay much stress upon something.
In this point charge him home, that he affects / Tyrannical power: if he evade us there, / Enforce him with his envy to the people, / And that the spoil got on the Antiates / Was ne’er distributed.
c. 1608, William Shakespeare, “The Tragedy of Coriolanus”Note
Shakespeare's Coriolanus shows its sharpest construction: "Enforce him with his envy to the people." The object is a person, and with introduces the charge pressed on him, much like modern "confront him with." That pattern sets it apart from the "give force to" meaning, where the argument itself is the object.
- 8To make or gain something by force; to force a result into being.
The invaders enforce an entrance through the broken wall.
He enforced a confession from the prisoner by cruel means.
Note
The ancestor of forcing one's way. Here the object is a road, passage or opening that the subject makes for itself: to enforce a passage. Spenser's The Faerie Queene (1590) has a stroke "enforcing furious way" through the air. Modern English keeps the image but drops the prefix, saying force a passage or force an entry.
- 9To put something in motion or action by violence; to drive it forward.
The drovers enforce the frightened horses through the narrow pass.
If they’ll do neither, we will come to them, / And make them skirr away, as swift as stones / Enforced from the old Assyrian slings:
1599, William Shakespeare, “The Life of Henry the Fift”Note
Here the force launches things. Shakespeare's Henry V (1599) has stones "Enforced from the old Assyrian slings," and Marlowe's Tamburlaine has spears "enforcing thunderclaps." The object is something hurled or driven, and the violence is physical. Pressure on a person's will belongs instead to the "compel" meaning.
- 10To exert oneself; to strain or try hard toward some end.
The pilgrims enforce themselves through cold and hunger to reach the shrine.
I pray you enforce youreselff at that justis that ye may be beste, for my love.
1470, Thomas Malory, Le Morte DarthurNote
A reflexive verb: one enforces oneself. Thomas Malory's Le Morte Darthur has the plea "I pray you enforce youreselff at that justis," urging a knight to do his utmost at the jousting. The pronoun is essential. Without it, the sentence becomes an ordinary transitive verb with a different meaning. Modern English says exert oneself or strive.
- 11To prove something; to demonstrate or show it clearly through evidence.
Note
A word of logical argument. The subject is a text or premise, and the object is the conclusion it compels. Richard Hooker, in 1594, asks whether any sentence of Scripture "doth necessarily enforce these things," close to modern entail or establish. The "necessarily" shows the old link to compulsion: proof is what forces assent.
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Origin
From Middle English enforcen, from Old French enforcier, from Late Latin infortiāre, formed from in- plus fortis ("strong").