Oppress

Part of speech: verb

Pronunciation: /əˈpɹɛs/

Definitions

1. To exert excessive control or cruelty on individuals, resulting in their suffering and loss of autonomy or rights
2. To impose severe hardships or tyrannical authority upon others, leading to emotional and physical distress
3. To exercise unfair power over people, causing them to suffer and restricting their freedom

Etymology: The verb "oppress" is built from a simple physical action: pressing something down against something else. Its Latin ancestor, "opprimere", combined "ob", meaning "against", with "premere", meaning "to press", so the original sense was literally to press against or press together. The same root gives English "press" itself, and the Latin verb's past participle "oppressus" is the source of the English word's form. The sense of crushing weight came about gradually. Medieval Latin turned the verb into "oppressare", a frequentative form suggesting repeated or intense pressing, and it passed into Old French as "oppresser". Middle English borrowed that French verb, and by then the idea of pressing had already shifted toward bearing down on people, so that a person could be oppressed by a burden, a rule, or a ruler just as a body could be squeezed flat.

Synonyms: persecute, subjugate, tyrannize, repress, dominate

Antonyms: liberate, emancipate, free, uplift, aid