Oppression

How to spell oppression

10 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce oppression

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does oppression mean?

1. nounProlonged cruel or unjust treatment that keeps a person or group powerless.

Oppression in a sentence

• The documentary examined decades of political oppression under the regime.

• Workers organised to end the economic oppression they faced in the factories.

Where does oppression come from?

Language of origin: Latin

The word descends from the Latin verb opprimere, which combined ob, meaning 'against' or 'down', with premere, meaning 'to press'. The literal sense was therefore 'to press down upon', and from it came the noun oppressio, describing a crushing or weighing down. English took the word from Old French oppression in the 1300s, when it carried the sense of harsh, unjust rule that presses down on a people. The same premere root sits inside many familiar relatives such as press, pressure, compress, and express, which is a useful reminder that the double p comes from the ob- prefix meeting the press- root. That doubled p, followed by the -ession ending shared with words like depression and impression, is exactly where careful writers must slow down.

How the word is built

• op- (from ob-: against, down)
• press (from premere: to press)
• -ion (noun suffix)