conscription
noun
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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
Ross Adkin, CNN Money, 27 Dec. 2025
The costs to Israeli society also grew as the war disrupted the country’s economy and imposed an unequal burden on families, given the exemptions from conscription that ultra-Orthodox and Israeli Arab communities historically enjoyed.
—Daniel Byman, Foreign Affairs, 23 Dec. 2025
The archive photos below are filled with snapshots that tell the story – new soliders after the country's first peacetime conscription, the push to buy defense bonds and the celebration on Monument Circle after Japan's surrender.
—Joe Mutascio, IndyStar, 24 Nov. 2025
On 22 July 2025, the State Duma introduced a bill for year-round conscription, which is set to take effect on 1 January 2026, if approved by Putin.
—Billal Rahman, MSNBC Newsweek, 24 Nov. 2025
See All Example Sentences for conscription
Cite this Entry
“Conscription.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/conscription. Accessed 1 Jan. 2026.
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