urge

noun

1. A strong desire to do something.

   “After seeing the advert for a soft drink, I had a sudden urge to buy a bottle.”

   “sexual urges”

   “repress your urges”

   “satisfy your urges”

   “Unless I’m wrong / I but obey / The urge of a song: / I’m—bound—away!”

verb

1. (transitive)To press; to push; to drive; to impel; to force onward.

   “Lo hapless Tydeus, whose ill-fated hand / Had slain his brother, leaves his native land, / And seized with horror in the shades of night, / Through the thick deserts headlong urged his flight[…]”

   “No longer do we tack and tack obediently to the demand of the Valkyries. A new power urges our ships independently of wind and tide. With the growth of steam power the crowning glory of the old ship departed.”

   “"The initial results in California speak for themselves. We will continue to investigate and the USDOT urges all states to revoke illegally issued CDLs. This initiative ensures our roads are safer for American families."”

2. (transitive)To put mental pressure on; to ply with motives, arguments, persuasion, or importunity.

   “My boss urged me to reconsider my decision to leave the company, even offering a pay rise.”

   “You do miſtake your buſines, my Brother neuer / Did vrge me in his Act : I did inquire it, / And haue my Learning from ſome true reports / That drew their ſwords with you, did he not rather / Diſcredit my authority with yours, / And make the warres alike againſt my ſtomacke, / Hauing alike your cauſe.”

3. (transitive)To provoke; to exasperate.

   “Vrge not my fathers anger (Eglamoure) / But thinke vpon my griefe (a Ladies griefe) / And on the iuſtice of my flying hence, / To keepe me from a moſt vnholy match, / Which heauen and fortune ſtill rewards with plagues.”

   ““I can answer a civil question civilly,” said the youth ; “and will pay fitting respect to your age, if you do not urge my patience with mockery. Since I have been here in France and Flanders, men have called me, in their fantasy, the Varlet with the Velvet Pouch, because of this hawk-purse which I carry by my side ; but my true name, when at home, is Quentin Durward.””

4. (transitive)To press hard upon; to follow closely.

   “Man ? and for ever ? wretch ! what wouldst thou have ? / Heir urges heir, like wave impelling wave.”

5. (transitive)To present in an urgent manner; to insist upon.

   “to urge an argument; to urge the necessity of a case”

   “To be urging her opinion against Sir Thomas's, was a proof of the extremity of the case, but such was her horror at the first suggestion, that she could actually look him in the face and say she hoped it might be settled otherwise; in vain however; […]”

   “As I understand it, that was a valid objection urged by Momus against the house which Minerva made, that she "had not made it movable, by which means a bad neighborhood might be avoided"; and it may still be urged, for our houses are such unwieldy property that we are often imprisoned rather than housed in them; and the bad neighborhood to be avoided is our own scurvy selves.”

6. (obsolete, transitive)To treat with forcible means; to take severe or violent measures with.

   “to urge an ore with intense heat”

7. (transitive)To press onward or forward.
8. (transitive)To be pressing in argument; to insist; to persist.