- forced
- forced, labored, strained, farfetched are comparable when they mean produced or kept up through effort and, therefore, neither natural nor easy nor spontaneous.Forced is the widest in range of application of any of these terms, being referred not only to what is brought about by compulsion{
works of a kind which had normally been performed in antiquity by the force d labor of slaves— Farrington
}or to what is accomplished by exerting force beyond the usual limit{a forced march
}{many women talk excitedly at a forced pitch for long periods and finish a conversation almost exhausted— Hewitt
}but also to what seems artificial because not natural, logical, or spontaneous or because constrained or affected{his . . . resolute rejection of forced and fantastic interpretation of Holy Scripture— Fosbroke
}{the old man was grinning. It was a little forced and a little painful, but it was a grin— Irwin Shaw
}Labored carries a stronger connotation of heaviness or of ponderousness or, sometimes, of tediousness as a result of great effort{a labored style
}{suggests that the woman loves the man because he alone can give her the baby that fulfills her femininity . . . . These explanations are ingenious, if labored— La Barre
}{uncomfortably aware of his men behind him; of their cushioned footsteps and labored breathing— Hervey
}Strained adds to these an implication of tenseness or of a result that is unnaturally or distortedly labored{strained attention
}{a strained comparison
}{in the style of each there is at times evidence of strained composition, a lack of verbal ease or elegance— Arnold Chapman
}{a strained air of reasonableness prevails, with a good deal of nervous anxiety showing through on both sides— Bendiner
}{three patients were sitting, with strained expectant eyes— Glasgow
}Farfetched applies especially to an expression, an idea, an argument, or an explanation which has been carefully sought out so that it seems unduly strained and not quite naturally used{his ideas were always farfetched
}{a farfetched comparison
}{these methods of interpretation . . . seem gratuitously farfetched, fantastic— Edmund Wilson
}Analogous words: compelled, coerced, constrained (see FORCE): factitious, *artificial: fatiguing, exhausting (see TIRE)Contrasted words: *easy, effortless, smooth: *spontaneous, instinctive, impulsive: *natural, unsophisticated, unaffected, artless
New Dictionary of Synonyms. 2014.