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oppressive

From Wiktionary, the free dictionary

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English

Etymology

From oppress +‎ -ive.

Pronunciation

  • IPA(key): /əˈpɹɛs.ɪv/
  • (less common) IPA(key): /əʊˈpɹɛs.ɪv/
  • Audio (UK):(file)
  • Rhymes: -ɛsɪv

Adjective

oppressive (comparative more oppressive, superlative most oppressive)

  1. Burdensome or difficult to bear.
    Synonym: grinding
    The oppressive tax laws made it difficult to start a small company.
  2. Tyrannical or exercising unjust power.
    Synonyms: see Thesaurus:bossy, Thesaurus:arrogant
    The oppressive land-owners kept a grip on the labourers.
  3. Weighing heavily on the spirit; being quite intense, excessive or overwhelming.
    Will the oppressive heat of summer never end?
    • 1807, The Literary Panorama 1807-01: Volume 1‎, Open Court Publishing Company, page 696:
      Without being slaves in fact, their condition is little better than vassalage in its most oppressive form.
    • 1827, Katharine Cover Sabin, ESP and Dream Analysis‎, Open Court Publishing Company, page 379:
      The class of noblemen, who, at this particular epoch, had lost nothing of their primitive vigour, saw with pleasure the influence of the French depressed; but they suffered scarcely less from the absolute and oppressive influence which the Spaniards had acquired over them.
    • 1847, Robert Chambers, Cyclopaedia of English Literature‎, Gould, Kendall and Lincoln, page 588:
      Their mantle was for a while worn unconsciously by him who showed to us Macbeth: and here again, in the deepening gloom of this tragic tale, we feel the oppressive influence of this invisible power, from the time we hear the prophetic rhymes, the spell has begun its work, and the clouds of misfortune blacken round us; and the fated course moves solemnly onward, irresistible and unerring as the progress of the sun, and soon to end in a night of horror.
    • 1864, The Theological Review‎, Whitfield, Green & Son, page 552:
      With startling and oppressive force of illustration, he brings before us the fact, that in that grandest city of the earth, “if all the churches, chapels and buildings devoted to public worship, were filled to their last seat, there would be still left outside the buildings as many people as the whole population—men, women and children—in the cities of Leeds, Bristol, Sheffield and Birmingham.”
    • 1887, Oscar Wilde, The Woman's World‎, Source Book Press,, page 75:
      It had been one of those unnaturally still and oppressive days when scarcely a leaf quivers, and every breath of air seems charged with electricity. Suddenly the thunder began to growl. Before many minutes eveiy pine-needle was shaking with a fierce chill wind, and a torrent of rain swept down the valley and drenched us through to the skin.
    • 1895, The Hartford Seminary Record 1895-02: Volume 5, Issue 3‎, page 163:
      He defines it as belief in exalted spiritual powers by whose help human weakness is supplemented in its struggle with the oppressive forces of the natural world.
    • 1912, Thomas Hardy, A Laodicean‎, Macmillan and Company, page 440:
      Mr. Wardlaw had left the castle: so also had Charlotte, by her own wish, her residence there having been found too oppressive to herself to be continued for the present.
    • 1914, Havelock Ellis, Man and Woman‎, The Macmillan Company,, page 158:
      The possibility that women are not very sensitive to odours is often suggested to men by the perfumes of oppressive strength which women frequently use.
  4. (of the weather) Hot and humid.
    Synonyms: humid, close

Synonyms

Derived terms

Translations

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French

Pronunciation

Adjective

oppressive

  1. feminine singular of oppressif

Italian

Adjective

oppressive

  1. feminine plural of oppressivo

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