The quality or state of being strong; ability to do or to bear; capacity for exertion or endurance, whether physical, intellectual, or moral; force; vigor; power; as, strength of body or of the arm; strength of mind, of memory, or of judgment.
Power to resist force; solidity or toughness; the quality of bodies by which they endure the application of force without breaking or yielding; - in this sense opposed to frangibility; as, the strength of a bone, of a beam, of a wall, a rope, and the like.
Power of resisting attacks; impregnability.
That quality which tends to secure results; effective power in an institution or enactment; security; validity; legal or moral force; logical conclusiveness; as, the strength of social or legal obligations; the strength of law; the strength of public opinion; strength of evidence; strength of argument.
One who, or that which, is regarded as embodying or affording force, strength, or firmness; that on which confidence or reliance is based; support; security.
Force as measured; amount, numbers, or power of any body, as of an army, a navy, and the like; as, what is the strength of the enemy by land, or by sea?
Vigor or style; force of expression; nervous diction; - said of literary work.
Intensity; - said of light or color.
Intensity or degree of the distinguishing and essential element; spirit; virtue; excellence; - said of liquors, solutions, etc.; as, the strength of wine or of acids.
A strong place; a stronghold.
To strengthen.
To stuff; to lard; to farce.
To constrain to do or to forbear, by the exertion of a power not resistible; to compel by physical, moral, or intellectual means; to coerce; as, masters force slaves to labor.
To compel, as by strength of evidence; as, to force conviction on the mind.
To do violence to; to overpower, or to compel by violence to one’s will; especially, to ravish; to violate; to commit rape upon.
To obtain, overcome, or win by strength; to take by violence or struggle; specifically, to capture by assault; to storm, as a fortress; as, to force the castle; to force a lock.
To impel, drive, wrest, extort, get, etc., by main strength or violence; - with a following adverb, as along, away, from, into, through, out, etc.
To put in force; to cause to be executed; to make binding; to enforce.
To exert to the utmost; to urge; hence, to strain; to urge to excessive, unnatural, or untimely action; to produce by unnatural effort; as, to force a conceit or metaphor; to force a laugh; to force fruits.
To compel (an adversary or partner) to trump a trick by leading a suit of which he has none.
To provide with forces; to reënforce; to strengthen by soldiers; to man; to garrison.
To allow the force of; to value; to care for.
A waterfall; a cascade.
Capacity of exercising an influence or producing an effect; strength or energy of body or mind; active power; vigor; might; often, an unusual degree of strength or energy; especially, power to persuade, or convince, or impose obligation; pertinency; validity; special signification; as, the force of an appeal, an argument, a contract, or a term.
Power exerted against will or consent; compulsory power; violence; coercion; as, by force of arms; to take by force.
Strength or power for war; hence, a body of land or naval combatants, with their appurtenances, ready for action; - an armament; troops; warlike array; - often in the plural; hence, a body of men prepared for action in other ways; as, the laboring force of a plantation; the armed forces.
Strength or power exercised without law, or contrary to law, upon persons or things; violence.
Any action between two bodies which changes, or tends to change, their relative condition as to rest or motion; or, more generally, which changes, or tends to change, any physical relation between them, whether mechanical, thermal, chemical, electrical, magnetic, or of any other kind; as, the force of gravity; cohesive force; centrifugal force.
To use violence; to make violent effort; to strive; to endeavor.
To make a difficult matter of anything; to labor; to hesitate; hence, to force of, to make much account of; to regard.
To be of force, importance, or weight; to matter.
