Compulsion
late Middle English: via Old French from late Latin compulsio(n- ), from compellere ‘to drive, force’ (see compel).
wiktionary
Borrowed from Middle French compulsion, from Late Latin compulsiō, from Latin compellere(“to compel, coerce”); see compel.
etymonline
compulsion (n.)
early 15c., "coercion, application of force (to someone) overwhelming his preferences," from Old French compulsion, from Latin compulsionem (nominative compulsio) "a driving, urging," noun of action from past-participle stem of compellere "to drive, force together," from com "with, together" (see com-) + pellere "to drive" (from PIE root *pel- (5) "to thrust, strike, drive").
Psychological sense of "instant impulse to behave in a certain way" is from 1909 in A.A. Brill's translation of Freud's "Selected Papers on Hysteria," where German Zwangsneurose is rendered as compulsion neurosis.
