urge
Noun pluralurges
Pluralurges
- 1
- 2A strong desire to do something, often hard to hold back.
A powerful urge to travel took hold of him that summer.
She resisted the urge to interrupt and let him finish.
Similarcraving, longing, impulse, itch, appetite
Oppositeaversion, reluctance
Note
A noun that usually comes with a to-infinitive (a sudden urge to buy) or with a verb of control. People resist, repress or satisfy their urges, and the plural leans toward bodily appetites, as in sexual urges. Hunger and yearning are near neighbors, but an urge is sudden and pressing, closer to an itch than to a long ache.
- 3To put forward a point or demand forcefully and insist that it be accepted.
Campaigners urge stronger limits on factory pollution.
She urged the necessity of reform at every meeting.
Similaradvocate, demand, press, stress, champion
Oppositeoppose
Note
In this sense the object is a claim rather than a person: you urge an argument, an objection, or the necessity of a case. Jane Austen's Mansfield Park (1814) has someone "urging her opinion against Sir Thomas's," and Thoreau's Walden (1854) describes an objection "urged against" a house. Against marks what the point is pressed upon. Contrast the persuading sense, which takes a person and a to-infinitive.
- 4To press, push, or drive something forward; to force it onward.
Fierce currents urge the loose logs downstream toward the mill.
The herders urged the cattle across the shallow river.
Similarimpel, encourage, stimulate, animate
Oppositerestrain, hinder, check, impede
Note
The physical sense of driving something forward by force. Pope's translation of Statius's Thebais (1703) has a fugitive who "headlong urged his flight," and Holbrook Jackson in 1922 writes of a new power that "urges our ships independently of wind and tide." That power is steam, not sail. The direct object is whatever is being moved: a vessel, a herd, a flight.
Less common meanings
- 5To provoke or exasperate someone; to stir them to anger.
The endless delays urged the crowd into open frustration.
Repeated taunts urge a tired temper to flare quickly.
Oppositecalm, soothe, pacify, placate
Note
Here the object is usually the feeling being pushed, not the person. Shakespeare writes "Urge not my father's anger" in The Two Gentlemen of Verona, and Scott's youth in Quentin Durward (1823) will stay civil "if you do not urge my patience with mockery." The picture is of pressing on a temper until it gives. Vex and strain are close, and test captures patience pushed to its limit.
- 6To press hard upon someone; to follow or pursue them closely.
The cavalry urged the retreating enemy through the night.
Wolves urge a wounded deer relentlessly until it falls.
Similarpursue, harry, hound, chase, dog
Note
Pope's translation of Horace (a. 1744) gives the image that best shows this sense: "Heir urges heir, like wave impelling wave." The pressure comes from one thing crowding hard on the heels of the next, so the sense suits succession as well as pursuit: generations, waves, or an army with cavalry behind it. The verb takes what is pursued as its direct object, with no preposition.
- 7To treat someone with forcible means; to take severe or violent measures against them.
Note
An obsolete sense, best left in older texts, because a modern reader will hear persuasion rather than force. The phrase "to urge an ore with intense heat" shows it applied to material as well as people: the ore is put through fierce treatment until it yields. When the verb appears in old writing beside fire, heat or violence, read it as harsh handling, not encouragement.
- 8
- 9
Showing meanings only.
Practice
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Origin
From the Latin verb urgeō, meaning "to urge."