How to Use coerce in a Sentence

coerce

verb
  • A confession was coerced from the suspect by police.
  • No one should be afraid to speak out or coerced to stay quiet.
    — Abby Gardner, Glamour, 20 Mar. 2018
  • No one is ever forced or coerced to see a show against their will.
    — Scott Galbraith, Orlando Sentinel, 11 July 2024
  • It’s coerced by the culture that raised them.
    — Timothy Schraeder Rodriguez, Time, 8 Oct. 2025
  • Kennedy’s case hinged, in part, on whether his players might have felt coerced to join him in prayer.
    — Charles McCrary, The New Republic, 3 Nov. 2023
  • But some were also deceived or coerced.
    — Efrat Lachter, FOXNews.com, 29 Apr. 2026
  • There was an edge to playing a second time, because we’d been coerced.
    — Rob Tannenbaum, Billboard, 26 May 2017
  • In our house, money wasn’t used to coerce us to do the right thing, but tasty treats were always fair game.
    — Sari Botton, Longreads, 2 Oct. 2017
  • Both soon recanted, saying they were coerced, but to no avail.
    — Joseph Neff, New York Times, 7 Apr. 2018
  • But a great piece of literature does not try to coerce you to believe it or to agree with it.
    — Meghan Cox Gurdon, WSJ, 21 Dec. 2018
  • In the end, the evidence came down to how coerced the female victims were.
    — Tracy Wright , Lauryn Overhultz , Maria Paronich , Brendan McDonald, FOXNews.com, 1 July 2025
  • But critics and his lawyers claim he was coerced into a false confession.
    — CBS News, 2 Oct. 2019
  • Most of my friends are either supportive or impressed, but there are a few who try to coerce me to drink.
    — Patia Braithwaite, SELF, 22 Aug. 2019
  • Many actresses regret some of the things they were coerced into.
    — Marta Balaga, Variety, 16 June 2024
  • The jurors disagreed on whether the confession could have been coerced.
    — CBS News, 15 Apr. 2018
  • The mayor told the judge under oath that he had not been coerced or made a deal with prosecutors.
    — Kate Christobek, New York Times, 20 Feb. 2025
  • Cameron was coerced to come back, serving as a producer and helping break the story.
    — Derek Lawrence, EW.com, 4 Nov. 2019
  • Lawyers for Dassey have argued all along that the confession was coerced and therefore false.
    — Seth Abramovitch, The Hollywood Reporter, 24 Oct. 2019
  • All the while the wind howled without remorse, coercing the leafless limbs of maples and oaks into a kind of warped dance.
    — Hazlitt, 9 Dec. 2024
  • Alley confessed to the crime, but later said the confession was coerced.
    — Travis Loller, San Diego Union-Tribune, 14 Oct. 2019
  • Two witnesses would have to sign the request to ensure that the patient is not being coerced.
    — Anthony Izaguirre, Fortune, 17 Dec. 2025
  • Hearst maintained that she was coerced, but she was convicted and sentenced to 35 years in prison.
    — David Faris, TheWeek, 16 Feb. 2026
  • Jon Burge coerced the confession.
    — Jake Sheridan, Chicago Tribune, 14 May 2026
  • This is a blatant attempt to coerce the players to agree to the owners positions.
    — Los Angeles Times, 8 Mar. 2022
  • Yi was not coerced to quit but was told enforcement of their contract would be waived as they were given the choice to stay or depart.
    — Kevin Dolak, The Hollywood Reporter, 16 May 2024
  • On the other hand, aid can be used to coerce journalists to change their norms and practices unduly.
    — Herman Wasserman, Quartz Africa, 9 July 2019
  • But Shipps coerced her to do so with him while his wife was in another room, according to the lawsuit.
    — Sara Coello, Charlotte Observer, 3 Feb. 2025
  • That’s a gentle way of saying that those institutions must be prepared, at times, to coerce.
    — Nikhil Krishnan, New Yorker, 20 Apr. 2026
  • This rig is meant to fall to the bottom, draw the bass’s attention to it along the way and then gently coerce them into biting.
    — Shaye Baker, Field & Stream, 25 May 2023
  • In each of the videos, Kim prods and pokes, trying to coerce each sister into flattering words about her weight.
    — Alex Abad-Santos, Vox, 3 Aug. 2018

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'coerce.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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