oppressive
/əˈpɹɛs.ɪv/
More pronunciations (1)Fewer pronunciations
uncommon/əʊˈpɹɛs.ɪv/
oppressive adjective: burdensome or difficult to bear.
Adjective
oppressive (comparative more oppressive, superlative most oppressive)
- Burdensome or difficult to bear.
- The oppressive tax laws made it difficult to start a small company.
- Synonyms:
- grinding
- Tyrannical or exercising unjust power.
- oppressive smell
- The oppressive land-owners kept a grip on the labourers.
- Synonyms:
- authoritarian, autocratic, bossy, coercive, commanding, controlling, demanding, despotic, dictatorial, dominant
- Weighing heavily on the spirit; being quite intense, excessive or overwhelming.
- Will the oppressive heat of summer never end?
- Without being slaves in fact, their condition is little better than vassalage in its most oppressive form.1807, The Literary Panorama 1807-01: Volume 1, Open Court Publishing Company, page 696
- Hot and humid.
oppressive meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Urdu and Bengali
oppressive in Hindi
- burdensome or difficult to bear
- दमनकारी damankārī
- tyrannical or exercising unjust power
- दमनकारी damankārī
oppressive in Tamil
- அடக்கி ஆள்கிற, அடக்குமுறையான, கொடிய
oppressive in Urdu
- oppressive, unfair, tyrannical
- ظالم zālim
- oppressive
- غضب ġazab
oppressive in Bengali
- oppressive
- জালেম jalem
- oppressive; annoying
- অত্যাচারী ottacari
More languagesFewer languages
- oppressive in Malayalam
- മർദ്ദനപരമായ, പീഡിപ്പിക്കുന്ന, ഞെരുക്കുന്ന
- oppressive in Kannada
- ದಬ್ಬಾಳಿಕೆಯ, ಹೊರೆಯಾದ, ತಡೆಯಲಾಗದ, ಅನ್ಯಾಯವಾಗಿ ಕ್ರೂರವಾದ
- oppressive in Punjabi
- ਡਾਢਾ ḍāḍḍhā
- oppressive in Gujarati
- દમનકારી
- oppressive in Tagalog
- mapang-api, mapanghamak
- oppressive in Vietnamese
- áp chế
Examples of oppressive in a sentence
- It had been one of those unnaturally still and oppressive days when scarcely a leaf quivers, and every breath of air seems charged with electricity.1887, Oscar Wilde, The Woman's World, Source Book Press,, page 75:
- He defines it as belief in exalted spiritual powers by whose help human weakness is supplemented in its struggle with the oppressive forces of the natural world.1895, The Hartford Seminary Record 1895-02: Volume 5, Issue 3, page 163:
- Wardlaw had left the castle: so also had Charlotte, by her own wish, her residence there having been found too oppressive to herself to be continued for the present.1912, Thomas Hardy, A Laodicean, Macmillan and Company, page 440:
- The possibility that women are not very sensitive to odours is often suggested to men by the perfumes of oppressive strength which women frequently use.1914, Havelock Ellis, Man and Woman, The Macmillan Company,, page 158:
Synonyms of oppressive
- grinding
- authoritarian
- autocratic
- bossy
- coercive
- commanding
- controlling
- demanding
- despotic
- dictatorial
30 more synonymsFewer synonyms
Forms of oppressive
| comparative | more oppressive |
|---|---|
| superlative | most oppressive |
Origin of oppressive
From oppress + -ive.
Words formed from oppressive
Words that rhyme with oppressive
- incessive
- progressive
- aggressive
- ingressive
- depressive
- egressive
- essive
- expressive
- impressive
- obsessive
- possessive
- recessive
48 more rhymesFewer rhymes
- successive
- accessive
- caressive
- concessive
- degressive
- digressive
- double possessive
- passive-aggressive
- pressive
- regressive
- retrogressive
- transgressive
- abessive
- addressive
- adessive
- alloaggressive
- allosuppressive
- antessive
- antidepressive
- antiexpressive
- antioppressive
- antiprogressive
- antirepressive
- anxiodepressive
- atheroprogressive
- atherosuppressive
- autogressive
- autoregressive
- autorepressive
- brogressive
- cardiodepressive
- cardiosuppressive
- compressive
- concrescive
- confessive
- congressive
- corepressive
- crescive
- decompressive
- derepressive
- dispossessive
- effervescive
- excessive
- exessive
- fauxgressive
- fibrosuppressive
- future perfect progressive
- future progressive
Questions about oppressive
- What does oppressive mean?
- Oppressive means burdensome or difficult to bear.
- What is oppressive in Hindi?
- Oppressive in Hindi is दमनकारी (damankārī). See Oppressive meaning in Hindi.
- How do you use oppressive in a sentence?
- It had been one of those unnaturally still and oppressive days when scarcely a leaf quivers, and every breath of air seems charged with electricity.
- What part of speech is oppressive?
- Oppressive is an adjective.
- How do you pronounce oppressive?
- Oppressive is pronounced /əˈpɹɛs.ɪv/.
Words near oppressive in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: oppressive (page history and authors); oppressive (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); ظالم (Urdu) (page history and authors); অত্যাচারী (Bengali) (page history and authors); oppressive (Malayalam Wiktionary) (page history and authors); oppressive (Kannada Wiktionary) (page history and authors); ਡਾਢਾ (Punjabi) (page history and authors); oppressive (Gujarati, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-I learned some phrases-oppressive.wav.
Cite this entry: “oppressive.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/oppressive. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.