What's the difference between compel and constrain?

Compel


Definition:

  • (v. t.) To drive or urge with force, or irresistibly; to force; to constrain; to oblige; to necessitate, either by physical or moral force.
  • (v. t.) To take by force or violence; to seize; to exact; to extort.
  • (v. t.) To force to yield; to overpower; to subjugate.
  • (v. t.) To gather or unite in a crowd or company.
  • (v. t.) To call forth; to summon.
  • (v. i.) To make one yield or submit.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) But he lost much of his earnings betting on cards and horses, and he has readily admitted that it was losses of up to £750,000 a night that compelled him to make some of his worst films.
  • (2) This provides a compelling argument that the protein kinase function of p37mos is an intrinsic property of the protein.
  • (3) Compelling evidence of the transference in this case occurred in the ninth month of treatment when the therapist told the child that she would be going on vacation.
  • (4) "We continue to believe that our final proposal was compelling and represented full value for AstraZeneca based on the information that was available to us," said the British-born executive.
  • (5) These advances will compel hospitals to plan for their funding and implementation.
  • (6) Certainly the affidavit against Ferdaus paints a compelling picture of a man hellbent on waging jihad in America and eager to take the guns and explosives eventually supplied to him by the undercover FBI agents.
  • (7) The Hollande team maintained that all topics were on the table and also held open the prospect that France could refuse to ratify Merkel's fiscal pact compelling debt and deficit reduction in the eurozone unless eurobonds were recognised as a possible tool.
  • (8) As a self-described rationalist, she felt compelled to act.
  • (9) Brown makes policy statements all the time, and we know exactly what he's said about social justice etc - but he has never been able to give the public a compelling answer to this question.
  • (10) The evidence has long been compelling that the primary fuel of what the US calls terrorism are the very policies of aggression justified in the name of stopping terrorism .
  • (11) Christine Langan of BBC Films told Screen Daily: "Compelling, funny and moving, Gold is a gem of a story and BBC Films is proud to be participating in bringing it to an international audience."
  • (12) The symbolism and the politics of the law are far more troubling and far more toxic than the actual substance of what the law will do itself.” That symbolism compelled store owners in Indianapolis to put up signs that say: “Instead of hate, we proudly serve everyone,” “This Hoosier still opposes the anti-LGBT license to discriminate,” and “Open for service!
  • (13) The bill, voted through a panel of the house energy and power subcommittee, would compel Obama to over-rule demands for a further review of the project from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and disregard local opposition to the Keystone XL pipeline from landowners along its 1,700-mile route.
  • (14) Pickles said he would also be making an order under the Local Government Act 2000 to compel Rotherham council to hold all-out elections in 2016 and every fourth year thereafter.
  • (15) In the Museum of the Warsaw Rising, the sound effects are powerful, the visuals compelling, the tragedy forcefully conveyed.
  • (16) Because we're a species of storytellers, we find movie-plot threats uniquely compelling .
  • (17) These results were perceived as scientifically compelling as well as clinically relevant.
  • (18) Extraterrestrials Decades of searching for signs of alien life have so far turned up a blank, yet the question of whether life on Earth is a one-off is among the most compelling in science.
  • (19) Although findings in animals are compelling, observations in humans are less clear.
  • (20) His videos make for compelling first-person testimony.

Constrain


Definition:

  • (v. t.) To secure by bonds; to chain; to bond or confine; to hold tightly; to constringe.
  • (v. t.) To bring into a narrow compass; to compress.
  • (v. t.) To hold back by force; to restrain; to repress.
  • (v. t.) To compel; to force; to necessitate; to oblige.
  • (v. t.) To violate; to ravish.
  • (v. t.) To produce in such a manner as to give an unnatural effect; as, a constrained voice.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) Paul Johnson, the IFS director, said: “Osborne’s new fiscal charter is much more constraining than his previous fiscal rules.
  • (2) The parameters of the multiplet signal are consistent with the presence of a sterically constrained tyrosine phenoxyl radical.
  • (3) The variations in behavior and physiology across the year were considered in terms of factors constraining the timing of the natural reproductive pattern.
  • (4) First, chains are constrained by their inability to penetrate the boundary.
  • (5) The prepro form of ET-1 was inactive, suggesting that mature ET peptides are constrained in an inactive conformation within the preproET species.
  • (6) A method is presented for testing the equality of some or all (constrained or unconstrained) optima in a response surface analysis.
  • (7) The genius of a democracy governed by the rule of law, our democracy, is that it both empowers the majority through the ballot box, and constrains the majority, its government, so that it is bound by law.” Turnbull added: “Why does Daesh [another term for Islamic State] hate us?
  • (8) Often, a single, constrained peptide analogue can be designed, which will have many of the desired biological and biophysical properties, and will serve as a template.
  • (9) Because the rigor of the present day "scientific method" demands clearcut and reproducible results and investigations require predictable performance of the parasite in an evenly maintained host that is in a highly constrained environment, we should not wonder why we cannot produce the events of nature.
  • (10) In the first stage, the constrained random ordering of the stimuli is generated as specified by the user.
  • (11) Intrauterine influences which retard fetal weight gain may irrecoverably constrain the growth of the airways.
  • (12) "We have rhetorical pressure, which we are using, and we have the Seventh Fleet, which nobody wants to use, and in between our options are more constrained," he said.
  • (13) If correctional institutions constrain inmates' access to social benefits, means exist to protect incarcerated people's rights in health studies.
  • (14) Her ability to estimate time intervals and general time perspective was constrained by her impoverished store of knowledge for personal experiences.
  • (15) The immobilization successfully constrained the anteroinferior displacement of the maxilla and zygomatic bone on the fused side.
  • (16) In a previous study of push-off without plantar flexion it was shown that the transformation of knee angular velocity into translation of the body is constrained by the fact that velocity difference between hip and ankle has to reach its peak value a long time before the knee is extended.
  • (17) As there is no evidence for a close evolutionary link between kinesin and myosin, these and other similarities may represent convergence to set of common functional properties which are constrained by the requirements of protein structure and the use of ATP hydrolysis as a source of energy.
  • (18) By lengthening the ventricular effective refractory period, trains of conditioning stimuli could prevent or terminate tachycardias, but this possibility is constrained, at present, by the spatial limitations of the technique.
  • (19) The data suggest that the biological effects of RA may be constrained or augmented by differential regulation of its own receptor gene expression.
  • (20) A biological process serves as a source and its products are subject t] local dispersive fluid forces constrained by chaotic streamlines.