8 letters · 11 points in Scrabble
verb force somebody to do something
verb commit in order to fulfill an obligation
verb bind by an obligation; cause to be indebted
originPartly inherited from Middle English obligat(e) (“bound (by any obligation), obliged”), partly directly borrowed from Latin obligātus, see Etymology 1, -ate (adjective-forming suffix) and -ate (noun-forming suffix) for more.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 3.0