Compellation
noun ·Rare ·Advanced level
Definitions
- 1 An act of addressing a person by a certain name or title. archaic, rare
"What are the parts of this prayer [the Lord's Prayer]? They are three. 1. A Preface of compellation for entrance into prayer, in the firſt words, Our Father which art in heaven, &c."
- 2 A name or title by which someone is addressed or identified; an appellation, a designation. archaic, rare
"Like that of the Thruſh and Swallow in Æſope, Inſteed of mutual loue, kind compellations, whore & thief is heard, they fling ſtooles at one anothers heads."
- 3 An act of addressing or speaking to someone; also, the address or speech so made. obsolete
"[O]ne Cornet [George] Joyce a buſie pragmatical perſon, whom [Oliver] Cromwell his Familiar had tutored in the Method of Boldneſſe and Rebellion, was privately conferred with about it, and after ſome familiar compellations hugged into the Conſpiracy, and immediately diſpatched away with a party of 1000 Horſe on the 4. of June, to Holmby, [...]"
Example
More examples"What are the parts of this prayer [the Lord's Prayer]? They are three. 1. A Preface of compellation for entrance into prayer, in the firſt words, Our Father which art in heaven, &c."
Etymology
Borrowed from Latin compellātiōnem (“act of addressing”) + English -ion (suffix indicating the result of an action or process). Compellātiōnem is the accusative singular of compellātiō (“a rebuke, reprimand, reproof”), from compellō (“to compel; to urge; to drive together”) (from com- (prefix indicating a bringing together of several things) + pellō (“to drive, impel; to strike”) (ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *pelh₂- (“to approach; to drive; to strike; to thrust”)) + -tiō (suffix forming nouns relating to actions or their results). Compare appellation.
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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.