a. [f. FORCE sb.1 + -FUL.]
1. Full of force, powerful, strong, vigorous.
1616. Chapman, Homer’s Hymn to Venus, I. 204.
| From all the Fayre | |
| Of this so forcefull concourse. |
1697. Dryden, Virg. Georg., III. 373.
| The Waters boil, and belching from below | |
| Black Sands, as from a forceful Engine throw. |
1725. Pope, Odyss., VI. 149.
| Then, where the grove with leaves umbrageous bends, | |
| With forceful strength a branch the Heroe rends. |
1784. Cowper, Task, IV. 315.
| The lands where lately waved | |
| The golden harvest, of a mellow brown, | |
| Upturn’d so lately by the forceful share. |
1824. Scott, Lett. to Ld. Montagu, 15 June, in Lockhart. The turf is no doubt a very forceful temptation, especially to a youth of high rank and fortune.
1888. Bryce, Amer. Commw., III. lxxvii. 17–8. Perhaps they practically leave themselves, like the Germans, in the hands of a venerated monarch and a forceful minister, giving these rulers a free hand so long as their policy moves in accord with the general sentiment of the nation, and maintains its glory.
b. Of speech, style, etc.: Cogent, impressive, efficacious, effective.
1571. Golding, Calvin on Ps. lxxiv. 18. A forcefull manner of speaking.
1591. Sylvester, Du Bartas, I. ii. 479.
| As namely, where our native Phrase doth want | |
| A Word so force-full and significant. |
1746. Collins, Manners, 71.
| O nature, boon from whom proceed | |
| Each forceful thought, each prompted deed. |
1828. Blackw. Mag., XXIV. July, 8/1. His [Phillpotts’] clear, classical, forceful style, is far superior indeed to that of Mr. Brougham.
1870. Proctor, Other Worlds, vi. 147. If Jupiter by his commanding proportions affords a forceful argument against the view that our tiny earth is the only real world in the solar system, Saturn supplies an argument of scarcely inferior strength in the singularly complex character of the scheme of which he is the centre.
1886. Ruskin, Præterita, I. ii. 54. I had to learn the whole body of the fine old Scottish paraphrases, which are good, melodious, and forceful verse; and to which, together with the Bible itself, I owe the first cultivation of my ear in sound.
2. Acting with force or violence; boisterous, impetuous, violent.
1592. Wyrley, Armorie, 145.
| The forcefull floud his vessell doth not spaire | |
| Barely crauling to next recouerd shore | |
| In wailing doth disaster hap deplore. |
1606. Sylvester, Du Bartas, II. iv. Trophies, 1038. Whose forceful stream runs smoothly serpenting.
1812. Examiner, 28 Sept., 620/1. The forceful ejection of a man and his family from their home.
1846. Keble, Lyra Innoc. (1873), 149.
| Help o’er the weary mountain.—Ne’er may fail | |
| The prayer of helpless Faith;—but she must pray, | |
| Her forceful knocking must Heaven’s door assail. |
1871. Blackie, Four Phases, i. 49. Every slave is naturally a liar; for his nature is a false nature, and has grown up into a contradiction to all nature, as trees by forceful artifice are made to grow downwards seeking the earth, instead of upwards to find the sun.
b. Driven with force or violence.
1697. Dryden, Æneid, II. 64.
| Against the Steed he threw | |
| His forceful Spear. |
1776. Mickle, trans. Camoens’ Lusiad, IV. 164.
| Deep through the ranks the forceful weapon past, | |
| And many a gasping warrior sigh’d his last. |
3. quasi-adv. = FORCEFULLY.
1718. Rowe, Lucan, IV. 1021.
| The Conqueror pursues, his arms entwine, | |
| Infolding gripe, and strain his crashing chine, | |
| While his broad knee bears forceful on his groin. |
1774. Goldsm., Nat. Hist. (1862), I. xiii. 71. If we made holes in the bottoms of both, the water would burst out as forceful from the one as the other.
Hence Forcefully adv.; Forcefulness.
a. 1774. Goldsm., Surv. Exper. Philos. (1776), I. 415. It has not force to overcome the resistance of the rest of the external fluid, which presses against it as forcefully as its contents press out.
1822. Examiner, 616/2. He sang very pleasingly, if not forcefully.
1825. Hone, Every-day Bk., I. 1076. The selfish destroyer of female innocence, can prevail on some wives and mothers by varnish of manner, and forcefulness of wealth, to the degradation of sanctioning his entertainments by their presence.
1832. Blackw. Mag., XXXI. 117/2. Aye—the Bill—though far from being perfect in all its parts, in the eyes of the educated radicals, will, nevertheless, work well—it will butt forcefully against the ramparts of aristocracy—and out from among the dusty rubbish the radicals see, in imagination, running like so many rats, the Lord Johnnys and the Lord Dickies, and in imagination they hear—and can ‘scarce retain their urine for affection,’—the creatures squeak.
1866. T. K. Cheyne, The Revision of the Authorized Version:—Old Testament, in Contemporary Review, II. 156. Who can tell that the whole current of French literature and religion might not, perhaps, have flowed differently, if the colourless proprieties of Ostervald had been exchanged for the idiomatic forcefulness of Calvin?
