| / English Dictionary |
OPPRESSION
| Pronunciation (US): |  | (GB): | |
I. (noun)
Sense 1
Meaning:
The act of subjugating by cruelty
Example:
the tyrant's oppression of the people
Synonyms:
oppression; subjugation
Classified under:
Nouns denoting acts or actions
Hypernyms ("oppression" is a kind of...):
persecution (the act of persecuting (especially on the basis of race or religion))
Derivation:
oppress (come down on or keep down by unjust use of one's authority)
Sense 2
Meaning:
A feeling of being oppressed
Synonyms:
oppression; oppressiveness
Classified under:
Nouns denoting feelings and emotions
Hypernyms ("oppression" is a kind of...):
depression (sad feelings of gloom and inadequacy)
Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "oppression"):
weight (an oppressive feeling of heavy force)
Sense 3
Meaning:
The state of being kept down by unjust use of force or authority:
Example:
after years of oppression they finally revolted
Classified under:
Nouns denoting stable states of affairs
Hypernyms ("oppression" is a kind of...):
subjection; subjugation (forced submission to control by others)
Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "oppression"):
yoke (an oppressive power)
Context examples:
I still felt as a wanderer on the face of the earth; but I experienced firmer trust in myself and my own powers, and less withering dread of oppression.
(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)
Felix soon learned that the treacherous Turk, for whom he and his family endured such unheard-of oppression, on discovering that his deliverer was thus reduced to poverty and ruin, became a traitor to good feeling and honour and had quitted Italy with his daughter, insultingly sending Felix a pittance of money to aid him, as he said, in some plan of future maintenance.
(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)
Now your honour is to know, that these judges are persons appointed to decide all controversies of property, as well as for the trial of criminals, and picked out from the most dexterous lawyers, who are grown old or lazy; and having been biassed all their lives against truth and equity, lie under such a fatal necessity of favouring fraud, perjury, and oppression, that I have known some of them refuse a large bribe from the side where justice lay, rather than injure the faculty, by doing any thing unbecoming their nature or their office.
(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)
This picture, she had allowed herself to believe, might have been accidentally obtained; it might not have been Edward's gift; but a correspondence between them by letter, could subsist only under a positive engagement, could be authorised by nothing else; for a few moments, she was almost overcome—her heart sunk within her, and she could hardly stand; but exertion was indispensably necessary; and she struggled so resolutely against the oppression of her feelings, that her success was speedy, and for the time complete.
(Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Austen)
Unjust!—unjust! said my reason, forced by the agonising stimulus into precocious though transitory power: and Resolve, equally wrought up, instigated some strange expedient to achieve escape from insupportable oppression—as running away, or, if that could not be effected, never eating or drinking more, and letting myself die.
(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)
I had no occasion of bribing, flattering, or pimping, to procure the favour of any great man, or of his minion; I wanted no fence against fraud or oppression: here was neither physician to destroy my body, nor lawyer to ruin my fortune; no informer to watch my words and actions, or forge accusations against me for hire: here were no gibers, censurers, backbiters, pickpockets, highwaymen, housebreakers, attorneys, bawds, buffoons, gamesters, politicians, wits, splenetics, tedious talkers, controvertists, ravishers, murderers, robbers, virtuosos; no leaders, or followers, of party and faction; no encouragers to vice, by seducement or examples; no dungeon, axes, gibbets, whipping-posts, or pillories; no cheating shopkeepers or mechanics; no pride, vanity, or affectation; no fops, bullies, drunkards, strolling whores, or poxes; no ranting, lewd, expensive wives; no stupid, proud pedants; no importunate, overbearing, quarrelsome, noisy, roaring, empty, conceited, swearing companions; no scoundrels raised from the dust upon the merit of their vices, or nobility thrown into it on account of their virtues; no lords, fiddlers, judges, or dancing-masters.
(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)
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