Sample Sentences for
oppress
grouped by contextual meaning
(editor-reviewed)

oppress as in:  oppressive government

Show 3 more with this contextual meaning
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    My work environment is oppressive.
    oppressive = harsh and unfair
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    Oppress not the cubs of the stranger, but hail them as Sister and Brother,  (source)
    Oppress = treat harshly and unfairly
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    During his senior year at Woodson, he became obsessed with racial oppression in South Africa.  (source)
    oppression = harsh and unfair treatment
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Show 10 more with 10 word variations
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    Mrs. Merriweather's large brown eyes always filled with tears when she considered the oppressed.  (source)
    oppressed = people treated harshly and unfairly
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    The TSA guy at the front of the line was shouting about how our bags had better not contain explosives or firearms or anything liquid over three ounces, and I said to Augustus, "Observation: Standing in line is a form of oppression," and he said, "Seriously."  (source)
    oppression = harsh and unfair treatment
    standard suffix: The suffix "-sion", converts a verb into a noun that denotes the action or result of the verb. Typically, there is a slight change in the ending of the root verb, as in admission from admit, discussion from discuss, and invasion from invade.
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    The boy will know by that time how to oppress with impunity.†  (source)
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    Actor-oppressor, for years you have lived above the common people and looked down on their labor.†  (source)
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    His destiny is to rise, to help his people overthrow their oppressors.†  (source)
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    O baffled, balk'd, bent to the very earth, Oppress'd with myself that I have dared to open my mouth, Aware now that amid all that blab whose echoes recoil upon me I have not once had the least idea who or what I am, But that before all my arrogant poems the real Me stands yet untouch'd, untold, altogether unreach'd, Withdrawn far, mocking me with mock-congratulatory signs and bows, With peals of distant ironical laughter at every word I have written, Pointing in silence to these songs, and then to the sand beneath.†  (source)
    unconventional spelling: This is more commonly spelled oppressed.
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    The fug of body odour, perfume and laundry soap hangs oppressively above bowed, damp heads.†  (source)
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    She felt she was beginning to belong, and when one told her about the option of living at the cooperative, and that she could avail herself of it if her family was oppressing her, or, another added quickly, even if she just felt like a change, the possibility struck Nadia with a shock of recognition, as though a door was opening up, a door in this case shaped like a room.†  (source)
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    Immediate necessity makes many things convenient, which if continued would grow into oppressions.  (source)
    standard suffix: The suffix "-sions", converts a verb into a plural noun that denotes results of the verb. Typically, there is a slight change in the ending of the root verb, as in discussions from discuss, explosions from explode, and revisions from revise.
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    It oppresses,—it terrifies me,—this mystery!†  (source)
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oppress as in:  oppressive heat

•
The heat is oppressive.
oppressive = uncomfortable (weighs heavily on the senses or spirit)
Show 3 more with this contextual meaning
  • •
    She is oppressed by her insecurity.
    oppressed = made uncomfortable (it weighs heavily on the spirit)
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    I had been granted unusual freedom and responsibility at an early age, for which I should have been grateful in the extreme, but I wasn't. Instead, I felt oppressed by the old man's expectations.  (source)
    oppressed = uncomfortably burdened
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    An oppressive odor met us when we crossed the threshold, an odor I had met many times in rain-rotted gray houses where there are coal-oil lamps, water dippers, and unbleached domestic sheets.  (source)
    oppressive = uncomfortable
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Show 10 more with 7 word variations
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    Nevertheless there was a sense of openness, a feel of a gentle breeze moving lightly about, that kept the darkness from being oppressive.  (source)
    oppressive = distressing
    standard suffix: The suffix "-ive" converts a word into an adjective; though over time, what was originally an adjective often comes to be used as a noun. The adjective pattern means tending to and is seen in words like attractive, impressive, and supportive. Examples of the noun include narrative, alternative, and detective.
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    Buoyed up, I forgot my usual feeling of routine self-pity when working out, I lost myself, oppressed mind along with aching body; all entanglements were shed, I broke into the clear.  (source)
    oppressed = made uncomfortable (weighed heavily upon)
  • •
    It may have been that the need of natural sleep, and the strange oppression of the air were beginning to overcome me.  (source)
    oppression = discomfort (weighing heavily on the senses or spirit)
    standard suffix: The suffix "-sion", converts a verb into a noun that denotes the action or result of the verb. Typically, there is a slight change in the ending of the root verb, as in admission from admit, discussion from discuss, and invasion from invade.
  • •
    My voice strains to be louder than the laughter all around me, the laughter that oppresses me as much as the heat.  (source)
    oppresses = distresses or makes uncomfortable
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    ...his spirits often oppress me;  (source)
    oppress = make uncomfortable
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    The cockpit was oppressively cramped, forcing pilot and copilot to live cheek by jowl for missions as long as sixteen hours.  (source)
    oppressively = uncomfortably
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    Perhaps his presence gave the evening its peculiar quality of oppressiveness — it stands out in my memory from Gatsby's other parties that summer. There were the same people, or at least the same sort of people, the same profusion of champagne, the same many-colored, many-keyed commotion, but I felt an unpleasantness in the air, a pervading harshness that hadn't been there before.  (source)
    oppressiveness = discomfort
    standard suffix: The suffix "-ness" converts an adjective to a noun that means the quality of. This is the same pattern you see in words like darkness, kindness, and coolness.
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    And all at once the sun was uncomfortably hot, the dust oppressive, and the meager grass along its edges somewhat ragged and forlorn.  (source)
    oppressive = uncomfortable (weighing heavily on the senses or spirit)
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    What most oppressed him was the consciousness of his own intellectual inferiority.  (source)
    oppressed = weighed heavily on the senses or spirit
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    I was alone; none were near me to dissipate the gloom and relieve me from the sickening oppression of the most terrible reveries.  (source)
    oppression = mental discomfort (distress and worry)
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