OPPRESSIVE

Pronunciation (US): (GB):

I. (adjective)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Marked by unjust severity or arbitrary behavior

Example:

tyrannous disregard of human rights

Synonyms:

oppressive; tyrannical; tyrannous

Classified under:

Adjectives

Similar:

domineering (tending to domineer)

Derivation:

oppress (come down on or keep down by unjust use of one's authority)

oppress (cause to suffer)

oppressiveness (a feeling of being oppressed)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Weighing heavily on the senses or spirit

Example:

oppressive sorrows

Classified under:

Adjectives

Similar:

heavy (marked by great psychological weight; weighted down especially with sadness or troubles or weariness)

Derivation:

oppressiveness (unwelcome burdensome difficulty)

Credits

Context examples:

The neighbourhood was a dreary one at that time; as oppressive, sad, and solitary by night, as any about London.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

There were dark, rolling clouds overhead, and in the air the heavy, oppressive sense of thunder.

(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)

My sufferings were augmented also by the oppressive sense of the injustice and ingratitude of their infliction.

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)

That was before he came to me, but the recollection of it is oppressive to him even now.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

Shortly before ten o'clock the stillness of the air grew quite oppressive, and the silence was so marked that the bleating of a sheep inland or the barking of a dog in the town was distinctly heard, and the band on the pier, with its lively French air, was like a discord in the great harmony of nature's silence.

(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)

The sleep into which I now sank refreshed me; and when I awoke, I again felt as if I belonged to a race of human beings like myself, and I began to reflect upon what had passed with greater composure; yet still the words of the fiend rang in my ears like a death-knell; they appeared like a dream, yet distinct and oppressive as a reality.