urge
/ˈəːdʒ
/verb [with object and usually infinitive]
1Try earnestly or persistently to persuade (someone) to do something: he urged her to come and stay with us [with direct speech]: ‘Do try to relax,’ she urged...
- We urge him to persuade the president to help mediate the situation.
- If you don't quite see the point after the first one, I urge you to persist and everything will become clear.
- Officers urged her to press charges, but her family persuaded her not to.
1.1Recommend (something) strongly: I urge caution in interpreting these results [with clause]: they are urging that more treatment facilities be provided...
- Finally, Mahan advocated and strongly urged the building of what he called an Isthmian canal.
- However, the organization establishes the following principles and strongly urges their adoption by other federations.
- In a recent newspaper column, Paul resurrects the medical care debate, and strongly urges the implementation of a socialist system of healthcare.
Synonyms
advise, counsel, advocate, recommend, suggest;
support, endorse, back, champion
1.2 [with object and adverbial] Encourage (a person or animal) to move more quickly or in a particular direction: drawing up outside the house, he urged her inside...
- Ralier kept urging the horse to move, but the animal didn't need persuasion.
- They rode through the night, urging their horses onwards.
- The driver urges the horses quickly through the near-empty town.
Synonyms
encourage, try to persuade, enjoin, adjure, admonish, press, prompt, prod, goad, egg on, spur, push, pressure, put pressure on, use pressure on, pressurize, lean on;
dragoon, constrain;
entreat, exhort, implore, call on, appeal, beg, beseech, plead, nag
informal psych up, put the heat on, put the screws on, twist someone's arm, railroad into, bulldoze into
1.3 (urge someone on) Encourage someone to continue or succeed: he could hear her voice urging him on...
- The game still looked in the balance and Rhodes continued to urge Kendal on with his constant ranting from the back.
- The look in Will's eyes urged her on.
- I am not rushing you, merely urging you on towards a speedy decision.
Synonyms
impel, spur (on), force, drive, coerce, goad
noun [often with infinitive]
A strong desire or impulse: he felt the urge to giggle sexual urges...
- Larenia giggled after she finished saying this and I had the strong urge to giggle with her.
- Zander, it appears, is not motivated by desire but by an urge to keep the story going.
- Impulsiveness, and the urge to take action is your gift and your strength, leaving the hesitating majority in shame.
Synonyms
desire, wish, need, impulse, compulsion, longing, yearning, hankering, craving, appetite, hunger, thirst, lust, fancy
informal yen, itch
Origin
Mid 16th century: from Latin urgere 'press, drive'.
Rhymes
- Magnificat
- magnification
- magnificence
- magnificent
- magnificent bird of paradise
- magnificent frigate bird
- magnificent fruit dove
- magnificent fruit pigeon
- magnificently
- magnificentness
- magnificent rifle bird
- magnificent spider
- magnifico
- magnificous
- magnifier
- magnifique
- magnify
- Chomskyan
- Chomsky, Noam
- chondral
- Chondrichthyes
- chondriome
- chondrite
- chondritic
- chondro-