Coercible

Part of speech: adjective

Definitions

1. Possible to be forced or influenced against one's consent
2. Able to be compelled or subjected to force or pressure without consent
3. Susceptible to being made to comply or yield through force or threats

Etymology: "Coercible" is built from "coerce" plus the suffix "-ible," and the suffix carries most of its history. The ending traces back through Proto-Italic forms and Latin "-bilis" and "-ibilis," meaning "able to be" or "capable of being," before passing into Old French as "-ible" and then Middle English as "-ible." English then attached it to "coerce," a verb that came into the language from Latin "coercere," meaning "to restrain" or "to hold together." So the word's core idea is simply that something can be restrained or pushed by force. The suffix is the more productive part of the story. Once English speakers had "-ible," they could make adjectives from many verbs, so "coercible" joins a large family such as "divisible" and "reducible" that all describe what can be acted on in a particular way. The formation is straightforward, and the word is essentially a compound of a verb and a suffix rather than a single inherited term.

Synonyms: compellable, constrainable, forcible

Antonyms: voluntary, optional