FromMiddle Englishoppression, fromOld Frenchoppression, fromLatinoppressiō(“a pressing down, violence, oppression”), fromopprimō; seeoppress.

• IPA^(key):/əˈpɹɛʃən/

• Audio(US):

  (file)

• Rhymes:-ɛʃən
• Hyphenation:op‧pres‧sion

oppression (countable anduncountable,pluraloppressions)

1. Theexercise ofauthority orpower in aburdensome,cruel, orunjustmanner.
   • 1614, Walter Ralegh [i.e.,Walter Raleigh],The Historie of the World […], London:[…]William Stansby forWalter 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”, inKnow Your Power: A Message to America's Daughters‎^[1],Doubleday,→ISBN,→LCCN,→OCLC,pages95–96:

     "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'soppression 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, seeCitations:oppression.
2. The act ofoppressing, or the state of beingoppressed.

   Extreme freedom is followed by extremeoppression, said Plato.

3. Afeeling of being oppressed.

   Ouroppression was lifted by the reappearance of the sun.

   • 1918,W[illiam] B[abington] Maxwell, chapter VII, inThe 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 dulloppression of the spirit.

• oppress

• “oppression”, inWebster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.:G. & C. Merriam,1913,→OCLC.
• William Dwight Whitney,Benjamin E[li] Smith, editors (1911), “oppression”, inThe Century Dictionary […], New York, N.Y.:The Century Co.,→OCLC.

FromLatinoppressiōnem.

• IPA^(key):/ɔ.pʁɛ.sjɔ̃/ ~/ɔ.pʁe.sjɔ̃/

• Audio:

  (file)

oppression f (pluraloppressions)

1. oppression
2. (Louisiana)asthma

• “oppression”, inTrésor de la langue française informatisé[Digitized Treasury of the French Language],2012.