Why this word is great
DURESS — [Noun] Constraint by threat or coercion, especially as a legal concept where such pressure invalidates consent. From Middle English duresse, from Old French duresse, from Latin dūritia ("hardness"), from dūrus ("hard"). Unlike "distress," which is an internal weather of suffering, or "compulsion," which can spring from within, duress is the cold architecture of an external will imposed upon your own. It is the signature signed with a gun held just out of frame, the confession extracted under a bare bulb's glare, the public loyalty sworn to save a loved one from ruin—the specific hardness that makes a choice no choice at all, leaving the act forever haunted by the ghost of freedom.