enforcement
nounUK /ɪnˈfɔːsm(ə)nt/ · US /ɪnˈfoɹsm(ə)nt/
Etymology From Old French enforcement, see enforce + -ment.
1
Usually The act of enforcing; compulsion.
- [M]en lyued ſimplye and innocentlye without inforcement of lawes, without quarellinge Judges and libelles, contente onely to ſatiſfie nature, without further vexation for knowledge of thinges to come.1555, Peter Martyr of Angleria [i.e., Peter Martyr d’Anghiera], “The Seconde Booke of the Fyrste Decade to Ascanius Phorcia [i.e., Ascanio Sforza], Vicounte Cardinall. &c.”, in Rycharde Eden [i.e., Richard Eden], transl., The Decades of the Newe Worlde or West India, […], London: […] [Rycharde Jug for] Guilhelmi Powell, →OCLC, 1st decade, folio 8, recto:
- And as congressional Republicans were passing a very unpopular Trump agenda bill last month, Vice President JD Vance argued that its historic expansion of Immigration and Customs Enforcement and new immigration enforcement provisions were so important that “everything else” was “immaterial.”2025 July 13, Aaron Blake, “Trump’s mass deportation is backfiring”, in CNN, archived from the original on 17 Jul 2025:
2
Usually A giving force to; a putting in execution.
3
Usually That which enforces, constraints, gives force, authority, or effect to; constraint; force applied.