Duress
/djʊˈrɛs/noun
Compulsion by threat or force; coercion.
Did you know?Duress entered English through law, and its deeper Latin ancestor also gave us words like endure and durable—same root, different fate.
Etymological Timeline
Proto-Indo-European
PIE
*der-
“to tear, split, or flay; associated with hardness and roughness in later descendants”
Latin
Latin
dūrus
“hard, harsh, severe”
Late Latin
Latin
dūrēcia / dūrētiās
“hardness, severity”
Old French
Old French
duresce
“hardship, severity, distress”
Middle English
English
duresse
“hardship, coercion, compulsion”
Modern English
English
duress
“threatened or forced coercion, especially in legal contexts”