conscription

noun

con·scrip·tion kən-ˈskrip-shən

Synonyms of conscription next

: compulsory enrollment of persons especially for military service : draft

During the war the armed forces were heavily dependent on conscription.

Did you know?

With its scrip- root, conscription means basically writing someone's name on a list—a list that, unfortunately, a lot of people usually don't want to be on. Conscription has existed at least since ancient Egypt's Old Kingdom (27th century B.C.), though universal conscription has been rare throughout history. Forms of conscription were used by Prussia, Switzerland, Russia, and other European powers in the 17th and 18th centuries. In the U.S., conscription was first applied during the Civil War, by both the North and the South. In the North there were pockets of resistance, and the draft led to riots in several cities. The U.S. abandoned conscription at the end of the war and didn't revive it until World War I.

Examples of conscription in a Sentence

young people who face conscription into the army

Recent Examples on the Web

Examples are automatically compiled from online sources to show current usage. Read More Opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.

In 1998, the court told the government that allowing Haredim to get out of conscription violated equal protection principles. —

Mick Krever, CNN, 25 June 2024 They can’t be moved or left behind and her husband, who is of conscription age, is not allowed to leave Ukraine. —

Katya Soldak, Forbes, 1 Nov. 2024 Manpower also remains a constant strain, and conversations continue in Ukraine about lowering the minimum conscription age from 25 to 18 to bolster available troop numbers. —

David Brennan, ABC News, 21 Oct. 2024 This was the insurrection, the week after the Battle of Gettysburg, of mostly poor, mostly Irish New Yorkers against Lincoln’s new policy of conscription into the Union Army. —

Nick Paumgarten, The New Yorker, 28 Oct. 2024 See all Example Sentences for conscription