different between compulsion vs coaction

English

Etymology

Borrowed from Middle French compulsion, from Late Latin compulsi?, from Latin compellere (“to compel, coerce”); see compel.

Pronunciation

• enPR: k?m-p?l'sh?n
• (UK) IPA^(key): /k?m?p?l.??n/
• (US) IPA^(key): /k?m?p?l.??n/

Noun

compulsion (countable and uncountable, plural compulsions)

1. An irrational need or irresistible urge to perform some action, often despite negative consequences.

2. The use of authority, influence, or other power to force (compel) a person or persons to act.
   • 2016 January 17, "Wealthy cabals run America," Al Jazeera America (retrieved 18 January 2016):

     But Treaty translator and Ottawa leader Andrew Blackbird described the Treaty as made “not with the free will of the Indians, but by compulsion.”

3. The lawful use of violence (i.e. by the administration).

Related terms

• compulsive
• compulsory

Translations

Further reading

• compulsion in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.
• compulsion in The Century Dictionary, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911.

French

Etymology

From Latin compulsi?.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /k??.pyl.sj??/

Noun

compulsion f (plural compulsions)

1. compulsion

Related terms

• compulsif
• compulsionnel

Further reading

• “compulsion” in Trésor de la langue française informatisé (The Digitized Treasury of the French Language).

English

Etymology 1

From Middle English coaccion, from Latin co?cti?.

Noun

coaction

1. (obsolete) force; compulsion, either in restraining or impelling
   • November 9, 1662, Robert South, Of the Creation of Man in the Image of God

     It had the passions in perfect subjection; and though its command over them was persuasive and political, yet it had the force of coaction, and despotical.

Etymology 2

co- +? action

Noun

coaction (countable and uncountable, plural coactions)

1. Collective or collaborative action.
   • 1997, Lauren B. Resnick, Discourse, Tools and Reasoning: Essays on Situated Cognition

     In the coaction condition, however, where the children did not have any opportunity to interact with one another, the mixed gender pairings produced a marked and statistically significant polarization of performance […]

2. (mathematics) The mapped version of an action to a cogroup.

Anagrams

• octanoic