Definition for CON-STRAINT'

CON-STRAINT', n. [Fr. contrainte.]

Irresistible force, or its effect; any force, or power, physical or moral, which compels to act or to forbear action, or which urges so strongly as to produce its effect upon the body or mind; compulsion; restraint; confinement. Not by constraint, but by my choice, I came. – Dryden. Feed the flock of God, taking the oversight thereof, not by constraint, but willingly. – 1 Pet. v.

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