oblige, bind, hold, obligate
(verb) bind by an obligation; cause to be indebted; “He’s held by a contract”; “I’ll hold you by your promise”
oblige, accommodate
(verb) provide a service or favor for someone; “We had to oblige him”
compel, oblige, obligate
(verb) force somebody to do something; “We compel all students to fill out this form”
Source: WordNet® 3.1
oblige (third-person singular simple present obliges, present participle obliging, simple past and past participle obliged)
(transitive) To constrain someone by force or by social, moral or legal means.
(transitive, intransitive) To do (someone) a service or favour (hence, originally, creating an obligation).
(intransitive) To be indebted to someone.
Aside from in American English and Scottish, "obliged" has largely replaced "obligate" by the 20th century, the latter being more common in the 17th through 19th centuries.
• big ole, biogel, globie
Source: Wiktionary
O*blige", v. t. [imp. & p. p. Obliged; p. pr. & vb. n. Obliging.] Etym: [OF. obligier, F.obliger, L. obligare; ob (see Ob-) + ligare to bind. See Ligament, and cf. Obligate.]
1. To attach, as by a bond. [Obs.] He had obliged all the senators and magistrates firmly to himself. Bacon.
2. To constrain by physical, moral, or legal force; to put under obligation to do or forbear something. The obliging power of the law is neither founded in, nor to be measured by, the rewards and punishments annexed to it. South. Religion obliges men to the practice of those virtues which conduce to the preservation of our health. Tillotson.
3. To bind by some favor rendered; to place under a debt; hence, to do a favor to; to please; to gratify; to accommodate. Thus man, by his own strength, to heaven would soar, And would not be obliged to God for more. Dryden. The gates before it are brass, and the whole much obliged to Pope Urban VIII. Evelyn. I shall be more obliged to you than I can express. Mrs. E. Montagu.
Source: Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary 1913 Edition
18 June 2025
(noun) large South American evergreen tree trifoliate leaves and drupes with nutlike seeds used as food and a source of cooking oil
The earliest credible evidence of coffee-drinking as the modern beverage appeared in modern-day Yemen. In the middle of the 15th century in Sufi shrines where coffee seeds were first roasted and brewed for drinking. The Yemenis procured the coffee beans from the Ethiopian Highlands.
