Obligates

Part of speech: verb

Definitions

1. Requires someone by law or duty to perform a certain action
2. Forces a person to fulfill their responsibilities or commitments
3. Binds an individual through legal or ethical necessity to act in a specified way

Etymology: "Obligates" is the third-person singular present form of "obligate", a verb meaning to legally bind someone to do something. The verb's roots run back to Latin "obligō", "to bind up" or "to bind to", built from "ob-" (towards, against) and "ligō" (to bind). The Latin past participle "obligātus" gave English both a verb and an adjective meaning "bound by obligation," and the English verb is first recorded in 1533. Its closest relative is "oblige", which came into English through French, while "obligate" was borrowed more directly from Latin. The two share a Latin ancestor but took different routes in, which is why English ended up with a pair of near-synonyms that look alike yet sound and feel slightly different: "oblige" tends toward courtesy and favours, while "obligate" carries a stiffer, more formal sense of compulsion.

Synonyms: compels, binds

Antonyms: releases, exempts