| Main Entry: | |
| Part of Speech: | adjective |
| Definition: | essential, required |
| Synonyms: | binding, coercive, compulsatory, compulsory, de rigueur, enforced, imperative, imperious, mandatory, necessary, requisite, unavoidable |
| Antonyms: | nonessential, optional, unrequired, voluntary |
| Main Entry: | compulsory |
| Part of Speech: | adjective |
| Definition: | binding |
| Synonyms: | compulsatory, de rigueur, forced, imperative, imperious, mandatory, necessary, obligatory, required, requisite |
| Antonyms: | free, liberalized, liberated, optional, unstipulated, voluntary |
| Main Entry: | due |
| Part of Speech: | adjective |
| Definition: | appropriate, proper |
| Synonyms: | becoming, coming, condign, deserved, earned, equitable, fair, fit, fitting, good, just, justified, merited, obligatory, requisite, rhadamanthine, right, rightful, suitable |
| Antonyms: | improper, inappropriate, insufficient, unjustified, unmerited, unrightful, unsuitable |
| Main Entry: | dutiful |
| Part of Speech: | adjective |
| Definition: | obedient |
| Synonyms: | binding, compliant, conscientious, deferential, devoted, docile, duteous, faithful, incumbent on, obligatory, punctilious, regardful, respectful, reverential, submissive |
| Antonyms: | betraying, disobedient, faithless, irresponsible, undutiful, unfaithful, unrespectful |
| Main Entry: | forced |
| Part of Speech: | adjective |
| Definition: | compulsory, strained |
| Synonyms: | affected, artificial, begrudging, binding, bound, coerced, coercive, compelled, conscripted, constrained, contrived, enforced, factitious, false, grudging, inflexible, insincere, involuntary, labored, mandatory, obligatory, peremptory, rigid, slave, stiff, stringent, unnatural, unwilling, wooden |
| Notes: | forcible indicates the use of brute force, forced means done involuntarily, and forceful suggests a potential for force |
| Antonyms: | noncompulsory, spontaneous, unforced, voluntary |
| Main Entry: | imperative |
| Part of Speech: | adjective |
| Definition: | necessary |
| Synonyms: | acute, burning, clamant, clamorous, compulsory, critical, crucial, crying, essential, exigent, immediate, important, importunate, indispensable, inescapable, insistent, instant, no turning back, obligatory, pressing, urgent, vital |
| Antonyms: | inessential, optional, secondary, unnecessary, voluntary |
| Main Entry: | imperious |
| Part of Speech: | adjective |
| Definition: | bossy, overbearing |
| Synonyms: | arrogant, authoritative, autocratic, commanding, compulsatory, compulsory, despotic, dictatorial, domineering, exacting, haughty, high-handed, imperative, imperial, mandatory, obligatory, oppressive, overweening, peremptory, required, tyrannical, tyrannous |
| Notes: | imperial pertains to the qualities of power and royalty; imperious implies that someone is overbearing or domineering |
| Antonyms: | fawning, helpless, humble, obedient, servile, subservient, weak |
| Main Entry: | inevitable |
| Part of Speech: | adjective |
| Definition: | certain; cannot be avoided |
| Synonyms: | all locked up, assured, binding, compulsory, decided, decreed, destined, determined, doomed, fated, fateful, fixed, for certain, foreordained, imminent, impending, in the bag, ineluctable, ineludible, inescapable, inexorable, inflexible, irresistible, irrevocable, necessary, no ifs ands or buts, obligatory, ordained, pat, prescribed, settled, sure, unalterable, unavoidable, undeniable, unpreventable, without recourse |
| Antonyms: | avoidable, doubtful, escapable, fortuitous, preventable, uncertain, unlikely, unsure |
| Main Entry: | involuntary |
| Part of Speech: | adjective |
| Definition: | automatic; not done willingly |
| Synonyms: | automatic, begrudging, blind, compulsory, conditioned, forced, grudging, habitual, impulsive, instinctive, instinctual, knee-jerk, obligatory, reflex, reflexive, reluctant, spontaneous, uncalculated, unconscious, uncontrolled, unintended, unintentional, unmeditated, unpremeditated, unprompted, unthinking, unwilling, unwitting, will-less |
| Antonyms: | conscious, intentional, unforced, voluntary |