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oblige

verb
/əˈblaɪd͡ʒ/

Etymology

From Middle English obligen, from Old French obligier, obliger, from Latin obligō, obligāre, from ob- + ligō. Doublet of obligate, taken straight from Latin.

  1. derived from obligo
  2. derived from obligier
  3. inherited from obligen

Definitions

  1. To constrain someone by force or by social, moral or legal means.

    • Your carelessness obliges firmness on my part.
    • I am obliged to report to the police station every week.
    • Tho' he was some time awake before me, yet did he not offer to disturb a repose he had given me so much occasion for; but on my first stirring, which was not till past ten o'clock, I was oblig'd to endure one more trial of his manhood.

  2. To do (someone) a service or favour (hence, originally, creating an obligation).

    • He obliged me by not parking his car in the drive.
    • The singer obliged(us) with an encore.

  3. To cause somebody to feel indebted.

    • I am much obliged to you for your recent help.

The neighborhood

Derived

disoblige, misoblige, obligable, obligement, reoblige

Vish — recursive loop

A definitional loop anchored at oblige. Each word in the ring is defined by the next; follow the chain far enough and it folds back on itself. Scroll to it and watch.

01oblige02constrain03limited04limits05limit06bound07obliged

A definitional loop anchored at oblige. Each word in the ring appears in the definition of the next; follow the chain far enough and it folds back on itself.

7 hops · closes at oblige

curated · pre-corpus. live cycle detection across the full graph is the next major milestone.

sense glosses and etymology drawn from English Wiktionary · source · CC-BY-SA