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oppression

From Wiktionary, the free dictionary

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English

Etymology

From Middle English oppression, from Old French oppression, from Latin oppressiō (“a pressing down, violence, oppression”), from opprimō; see oppress.

Pronunciation

  • IPA(key): /əˈpɹɛʃən/
  • Audio (US):(file)
  • Rhymes: -ɛʃən
  • Hyphenation: op‧pres‧sion

Noun

oppression (countable and uncountable, plural oppressions)

  1. The exercise of authority or power in a burdensome, cruel, or unjust manner.
    • 1614, Walter Ralegh [i.e., Walter Raleigh], The Historie of the World […], London: […] William Stansby for Walter Burre, […], →OCLC, (please specify |book=1 to 5):
      Oh, by what plots, by what forswearings, betrayings, oppressions, imprisonments, tortures, poisonings, and under what reasons of state and politic subtilty, have these forenamed kings […] pulled the vengeance of God upon themselves […]
    • 2008, Nancy Pelosi, “A Voice That Will Be Heard”, in Know Your Power: A Message to America's Daughters‎, Doubleday, →ISBN, →LCCN, →OCLC, pages 95–96:
      "Tibet challenges the conscience of the world," I told the audience at a gathering outside the town's main temple. "If freedom-loving people throughout the world do not speak out against China's oppression in China and Tibet, we have lost all moral authority to speak on behalf of human rights anywhere in the world."
    • For more quotations using this term, see Citations:oppression.
  2. The act of oppressing, or the state of being oppressed.
    Extreme freedom is followed by extreme oppression, said Plato.
    • 1986 February 15, GCN staff, “Our Movement Is No Place for Jew-hating”, in Gay Community News, volume 13, number 31, page 4:
      We're choosing to use "anti-Jewishness" [rather than "anti-Semitism"] in recognition of the separate experiences and different oppressions of other peoples who also claim the name of "Semite."
  3. A feeling of being oppressed.
    Our oppression was lifted by the reappearance of the sun.
    • 1918, W[illiam] B[abington] Maxwell, chapter VII, in The Mirror and the Lamp, Indianapolis, Ind.: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, →OCLC:
      […] St. Bede's at this period of its history was perhaps the poorest and most miserable parish in the East End of London. Close-packed, crushed by the buttressed height of the railway viaduct, rendered airless by huge walls of factories, it at once banished lively interest from a stranger's mind and left only a dull oppression of the spirit.

Derived terms

Translations

Further reading

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French

Etymology

From Latin oppressiōnem.

Pronunciation

Noun

oppression f (plural oppressions)

  1. oppression
  2. (Louisiana) asthma
  3. This term needs a translation to English. Please help out and add a translation, then remove the text {{rfdef}}.
    • 1857, Gustave Flaubert, Madame Bovary […] ‎, Paris: Michel Lévy Frères; republished as Eleanor Marx, transl., Madame Bovary, 1886:
      Charles l'interrompit: il avait mille inquiétudes, en effet; les oppressions de sa femme recommençaient. Alors Rodolphe demanda si l'exercice du cheval ne serait pas bon.
      Charles interrupted him; he had indeed a thousand anxieties; his wife's palpitations of the heart were beginning again.

Further reading

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