Oppression

• POS: Noun
• HYPHEN: op=pres=sion

CIDE DICTIONARY

Oppression, n. [F., fr. L. oppressio.].

•  The act of oppressing, or state of being oppressed.  [1913 Webster]
•  That which oppresses; a hardship or injustice; cruelty; severity; tyranny.  Job xxxv. 9.  [1913 Webster]
•  A sense of heaviness or obstruction in the body or mind; depression; dullness; lassitude; as, an oppression of spirits; an oppression of the lungs.  [1913 Webster]

  "There gentle Sleep
  First found me, and with soft oppression seized
  My drowsed sense."  [1913 Webster]
•  Ravishment; rape.  Chaucer.  [1913 Webster]

OXFORD DICTIONARY

Oppression, n.
1 the act or an instance of oppressing; the state of being oppressed.
2 prolonged harsh or cruel treatment or control.
3 mental distress.

Etymology

OF f. L oppressio (as OPPRESS)

THESAURUS

Oppression

McCarthyism, Schmerz, Slough of Despond, abuse, affliction, airlessness, anguish, argumentum baculinum, bale, big stick, bitter cup, bitter draft, bitter draught, bitter pill, blank despondency, burden, burden of care, burdening, burthen, cankerworm of care, care, cargo, charge, charging, closeness, cross, crown of thorns, cumber, cumbrance, curse, deadweight, death wish, dejectedness, dejection, depression, despair, despondency, despondentness, despotism, discouragement, disheartenment, dispiritedness, distress, domination, domineering, down trip, downcastness, downer, downheartedness, drag, drooping spirits, encumbrance, enslavement, fascism, freight, gall, gall and wormwood, grievance, handicap, harassment, hardship, harrying, heartlessness, heavy hand, high hand, hopelessness, hounding, incubus, incumbency, infliction, injury, injustice, iron boot, iron hand, iron heel, lading, load, loading, low spirits, lowness, lowness of spirit, malaise, maltreatment, millstone, oppressiveness, overload, overtaxing, overweighting, pack of troubles, pain, peck of troubles, persecution, pessimism, pressure, red-baiting, reign of terror, repression, saddling, sea of troubles, self-destructive urge, sinking heart, sorrow, spiritlessness, stuffiness, subjection, subjugation, suicidal despair, superincumbency, suppression, surcharge, taedium vitae, taxing, terrorism, thorn, thought control, torment, tormenting, torture, trouble, tyranny, victimization, waters of bitterness, weariness of life, weight, witch-hunt, witch-hunting, woe

ROGET THESAURUS

Oppression

Badness

N badness, hurtfulness, virulence, evil doer, bane, plague spot, evil star, ill wind, hoodoo, Jonah, snake in the grass, skeleton in the closet, amari aliquid, thorn in the side, malignity, malevolence, tender mercies, ill-treatment, annoyance, molestation, abuse, oppression, persecution, outrage, misusage, injury, knockout drops, badness, peccancy, abomination, painfulness, pestilence, guilt, depravity, hurtful, harmful, scathful, baneful, baleful, injurious, deleterious, detrimental, noxious, pernicious, mischievous, full of mischief, mischief-making, malefic, malignant, nocuous, noisome, prejudicial, disserviceable, disadvantageous, wide-wasting, unlucky, sinister, obnoxious, untoward, disastrous, oppressive, burdensome, onerous, malign, corrupting &c (corrupt), virulent, venomous, envenomed, corrosive, poisonous, deadly, destructive, inauspicious, bad, ill, arrant, as bad as bad can be, dreadful, horrid, horrible, dire, rank, peccant, foul, fulsome, rotten, rotten at the core, vile, base, villainous, mean, injured, deteriorated, unsatisfactory, exceptionable indifferent, below par, illcontrived, ill-conditioned, wretched, sad, grievous, deplorable, lamentable, pitiful, pitiable, woeful, evil, wrong, depraved, shocking, reprehensible, hateful, hateful as a toad, abominable, detestable, execrable, cursed, accursed, confounded, damned, damnable, infernal, diabolic, unadvisable, unprofitable, incompetent, irremediable, badly, wrong, ill, to one's cost, where the shoe pinches, bad is the best: the worst come to the worst, herba mala presto cresco, wrongs unredressed or insults unavenged.

Severity

N severity, strictness, harshness, rigor, stringency, austerity, inclemency, arrogance, precisianism, arbitrary power, absolutism, despotism, dictatorship, autocracy, tyranny, domineering, oppression, assumption, usurpation, inquisition, reign of terror, martial law, iron heel, iron rule, iron hand, iron sway, tight grasp, brute force, brute strength, coercion, strong hand, tight hand, hard lines, hard measure, tender mercies, sharp practice, pipe-clay, officialism, tyrant, disciplinarian, precisian, martinet, stickler, bashaw, despot, hard master, Draco, oppressor, inquisitor, extortioner, harpy, vulture, accipitres, birds of prey, raptorials, raptors, severe, strict, hard, harsh, dour, rigid, stiff, stern, rigorous, uncompromising, exacting, exigent, exigeant, inexorable, inflexible, obdurate, austere, hard-headed, hard-nosed, hard-shell, relentless, Spartan, Draconian, stringent, strait-laced, searching, unsparing, iron-handed, peremptory, absolute, positive, arbitrary, imperative, coercive, tyrannical, extortionate, grinding, withering, oppressive, inquisitorial, inclement, cruel, haughty, arrogant, precisian, severely, with a high hand, with a strong hand, with a tight hand, with a heavy hand, at the point of the sword, at the point of the bayonet, Delirant reges plectuntur Achivi, manu forti, ogni debole ha sempre il suo tiranno.

Subjection

N subjection, dependence, dependency, subordination, thrall, thralldom, thraldom, enthrallment, subjugation, bondage, serfdom, feudalism, feudality, vassalage, villenage, slavery, enslavement, involuntary servitude, conquest, service, servitude, servitorship, tendence, employ, tutelage, clientship, liability, constraint, oppression, yoke, submission, obedience, subject, dependent, subordinate, feudal, feudatory, in subjection to, under control, in leading strings, in harness, subjected, enslaved, constrained, downtrodden, overborne, overwhelmed, under the lash, on the hip, led by the nose, henpecked, the puppet of, the sport of, the plaything of, under one's orders, under one's command, under one's thumb, a slave to, at the mercy of, in the power of, in the hands of, in the clutches of, at the feet of, at one's beck and call, liable, parasitical, stipendiary, under, slaves - in a land of light and law.