The AI-powered English dictionary
countable and uncountable, plural oppressions
The exercise of authority or power in a burdensome, cruel, or unjust manner. quotations examples
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 […]
1614, Walter Ralegh [i.e., Walter Raleigh], The Historie of the World […], London: […] William Stansby for Walter Burre, […], (please specify |book=1 to 5)
"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."
2008, Nancy Pelosi, “A Voice That Will Be Heard”, in Know Your Power: A Message to America's Daughters, Doubleday, pages 95–96
The act of oppressing, or the state of being oppressed. examples
A feeling of being oppressed. quotations examples
[…] 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.
1918, W[illiam] B[abington] Maxwell, chapter VII, in The Mirror and the Lamp, Indianapolis, Ind.: The Bobbs-Merrill Company