• IPA: /əˈpɹɛs/

oppress (oppresses, present participle oppressing; past and past participle oppressed)

1. (transitive) To keep down by unjust force.

   The rural poor were oppressed by the land-owners.

2. (transitive) To make sad or gloomy.

   We were oppressed by the constant grey skies.

3. (transitive, obsolete) Physically to press down on (someone) with harmful effects; to smother, crush.
   • 1590, Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Qveene. […], London: Printed [by John Wolfe] for VVilliam Ponsonbie, OCLC 960102938 ↗, book II, canto X:

     Most mercilesse of women, VVyden hight, / Her other sonne fast sleeping did oppresse, / And with most cruell hand him murdred pittilesse.

Conjugation of oppress

infinitive	(to) oppress
	present tense	past tense
1st-person singular	oppress	oppressed
2nd-person singular	oppressest*	oppressed, oppressedst*
3rd-person singular	oppresses, oppresseth*	oppressed#English|oppressed
plural	oppress
subjunctive	oppress
imperative	oppress	—
participle> participles	oppressing	oppressed
* Archaic or obsolete.

Related terms

• oppression

Translations

• French: opprimer
• German: unterdrücken
• Italian: opprimere
• Portuguese: oprimir
• Russian: притесня́ть
• Spanish: oprimir

Translations

• French: oppresser

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