Thesaurus results for OPPRESSOR

oppressor

noun

as in tyrant

a person who uses power or authority in a cruel, unjust, or harmful way the dictatorship had scarcely been overthrown when the formerly oppressed suddenly abandoned their democratic ideals and became the oppressors

Synonyms & Similar Words

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Example Sentences

Examples are automatically compiled from online sources to show current usage. Read More Opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.

Recent Examples of oppressor An America where justice brings down oppressors and lifts up the ordinary. —

Chicago Tribune, 21 June 2026 And did the advocates of this collective pedagogy imagine their children rising to heights of power, only to view the darker nations of the world through the same violent lens as their oppressors? —

Ta-Nehisi Coates, Vanity Fair, 15 June 2026 To Be Whole,' which teaches that the United States was founded on 'white supremacy' and categorizes individuals as 'oppressors' and 'oppressed' based only on their skin color, not their individual decisions and actions. —

Gabriela Vidal, CBS News, 9 June 2026 Going to a former colony as a white male Belgian filmmaker, going there as the former oppressor in a way, or having that heritage of the oppressor. —

Georg Szalai, HollywoodReporter, 2 June 2026 Meanwhile, Annie as played by Tess Barthélémy copes in two ways with being surrounded by caricaturish oppressors. —

Sophie Monks Kaufman, IndieWire, 18 May 2026 Cuba needs to be rid of its oppressors once and for all, as quickly as possible. —

Carlos Eire, Time, 23 Apr. 2026 Civil War, or an oppressor who wants to kill you. —

Mariam Khan, ABC News, 22 Apr. 2026 In the piece, the Vicar of Christ is felled not by his oppressors but rather by a random cosmic event. —

Brian Boucher, ARTnews.com, 16 Apr. 2026

Recent Examples of Synonyms for oppressor

Noun

Aegon, dragged out of King’s Landing by spymaster Lord Larys Strong (Matthew Needham) in an effort to save him from the fratricidal Aemond, gets an up-close look at the petty tyrants who have sprouted up in the countryside thanks to his impetuous rule.

— Roxana Hadadi, Vulture, 18 June 2026
Examples range from businesses like Enron, Tyco, and Bernie Madoff, along with historical tyrants like Stalin or Hitler to modern figures like Putin, and industries like tobacco that knowingly harm users for profit.

— Steve Denning, Forbes.com, 14 June 2026