bend to one's will

present singular third person bends to one's will · participle present bending to one's will · participle past bent to one's will · past bent to one's will

1. idiomatictransitiveTo compel someone or something to conform to one's desires.

   His wicked lust for gold kindled at the news, and he bent her to his will.

   1892, Arthur Conan Doyle, “The Adventure of the Beryl Coronet”, in The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes

   2 more examples

   Cenci: For Beatrice worse terrors are in store / To bend her to my will. Lucretia: Oh! to what will? / What cruel sufferings more than she has known / Canst thou inflict?

   1820, Percy Bysshe Shelley, The Cenci, act 4, sc. 1

   Morrison had a superfluity of gifts and, like few other writers of her era, bent language to her will.

   2019 August 6, Dwight Garner, "Toni Morrison, a Writer of Many Gifts Who Bent Language to Her Will, New York Times (retrieved 23 Aug 2019)