compelling

English

Etymology

By surface analysis, compel +‎ -ing.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /kəmˈpɛlɪŋ/

  • Audio (US):

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• Rhymes: -ɛlɪŋ

Verb

compelling

1. present participle and gerund of compel

Adjective

compelling (comparative more compelling, superlative most compelling)

1. Strongly or irresistibly evoking interest or attention.

   There are compelling reasons why a manager should have previous experience.

   • 2013 June 21, Oliver Burkeman, “The tao of tech”, in The Guardian Weekly, volume 189, number 2, page 27:

     The dirty secret of the internet is that all this distraction and interruption is immensely profitable. Web companies like to boast about "creating compelling content", or offering services that let you "stay up to date with what your friends are doing", "share the things you love with the world" and so on.

2. Forceful.

   The politician had compelling ambition.

   • 2011 October 29, Phil McNulty, “Chelsea 3-5 Arsenal”, in BBC Sport:

     Terry's goal looked to have put Chelsea in control on the stroke of half-time but Arsenal's response presented a compelling case for Wenger's insistence that reports of his side's demise have been greatly exaggerated.

Derived terms

• compellingness
• uncompelling

 

Translations

strongly or irresistibly evoking interest or attention

• Bulgarian: наложителен (bg) (naložitelen)
• Dutch: dwingend (nl)
• Finnish: pakottava (fi)
• German: zwingend (de), fesselnd (de), unwiderstehlich (de)
• Hungarian: impozáns (hu), nyomós (hu), hathatós (hu), magával ragadó (hu), meggyőző (hu), ellenállhatatlan (hu), kényszerítő (hu), minden kétséget kizáró (literally “excluding all doubt”)
• Italian: impellente (it), indifferibile (it), urgente (it), pressante (it)
• Latin: cogens
• Russian: безотлагательный (ru) m (bezotlagatelʹnyj), неотложный (ru) m (neotložnyj)
• Spanish: de peso, compeliente
• Turkish: ilgi uyandırıcı

forceful — see also forceful

• Bulgarian: непреодолим (bg) (nepreodolim), неустоим (bg) (neustoim)
• Catalan: convincent
• Finnish: vangitseva (fi), vastustamaton, mukaansatempaava
• German: überwältigend (de), unwiderstehlich (de), fesselnd (de), hinreißend (de), überzeugend (de)
• Hungarian: erőteljes (hu), elsöprő (hu), hatalmas (hu)
• Italian: convincente (it)
• Turkish: zorlayıcı (tr)

Noun

compelling (plural compellings)

1. An act of compulsion; an obliging somebody to do something.

Related terms

• compel
• compellingly

References

• “compelling”, in OneLook Dictionary Search.
• “compelling”, in The Century Dictionary […], New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911, →OCLC.
• compelling in Britannica Dictionary
• compelling in Macmillan Collocations Dictionary
• compelling in Sentence collocations by Cambridge Dictionary
• compelling in Ozdic collocation dictionary
• compelling in WordReference English Collocations