oppression

plural oppressions

1. countableuncountableThe exercise of authority or power in a burdensome, cruel, or unjust manner.

   Oh, by what plots, by what forswearings, betrayings, oppressions, imprisonments, tortures, poisonings, and under what reasons of state and politic subtilty, have these forenamed kings […] pulled the vengeance of God upon themselves […]

   1614, Walter Ralegh [i.e., Walter Raleigh], The Historie of the World […], London: […] William Stansby for Walter Burre, […], →OCLC, (please specify |book=1 to 5)

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   "Tibet challenges the conscience of the world," I told the audience at a gathering outside the town's main temple. "If freedom-loving people throughout the world do not speak out against China's oppression in China and Tibet, we have lost all moral authority to speak on behalf of human rights anywhere in the world."

   2008, Nancy Pelosi, “A Voice That Will Be Heard”, in Know Your Power: A Message to America's Daughters, Doubleday, →ISBN, →LCCN, →OCLC, pages 95–96

2. countableuncountableThe act of oppressing, or the state of being oppressed.

   Extreme freedom is followed by extreme oppression, said Plato.

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   We're choosing to use "anti-Jewishness" [rather than "anti-Semitism"] in recognition of the separate experiences and different oppressions of other peoples who also claim the name of "Semite."

   1986 February 15, GCN staff, “Our Movement Is No Place for Jew-hating”, in Gay Community News, volume 13, number 31, page 4

3. countableuncountableA feeling of being oppressed. Special usage may include a sense of heaviness or obstruction in the body or mind; depression; dullness; lassitude.

   Our oppression was lifted by the reappearance of the sun.

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   […] St. Bede's at this period of its history was perhaps the poorest and most miserable parish in the East End of London. Close-packed, crushed by the buttressed height of the railway viaduct, rendered airless by huge walls of factories, it at once banished lively interest from a stranger's mind and left only a dull oppression of the spirit.

   1918, W[illiam] B[abington] Maxwell, chapter VII, in The Mirror and the Lamp, Indianapolis, Ind.: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, →OCLC