forcible : Idioms & Phrases

• (Law), the entering upon and taking and withholding of land and tenements by actual force and violence, and with a strong hand, to the hindrance of the person having the right to enter.

Webster 1913

For"ci*ble-fee`ble adjective

Etymology

From Feeble, a character in the Second Part of Shakespeare's "King Henry IV.," to whom Falstaff derisively applies the epithet "forcible."

Definitions

1. Seemingly vigorous, but really weak or insipid.

   He [Prof. Ayton] would purge his book of much offensive matter, if he struck out epithets which are in the bad taste of the forcible-feeble school. N. Brit. Review.

Webster 1913