oppressed

adjective

op·​pressed ə-ˈprest 

: burdened by abuse of power or authority

Group identity in oppressed groups is always very strategic, always a calculation of advantage.

—Shelby Steele

They are neither oppressed minorities, whose needs have been etched into the nation's consciousness, nor members of the ruling elite, born with their hands on the reins of power.

—Anthony DeCurtis

Synonyms

• crushed
• downtrodden
• persecuted
• tyrannized

Examples of oppressed in a Sentence

setting out on a quixotic quest to right wrongs and to raise up the oppressed peoples of the world

Recent Examples on the Web

Serkis keeps the spine of Orwell’s novella, about a group of oppressed farm animals who rebel against their human oppressors, only to repeat the humans’ mistakes, but his version takes a few liberties. —Scott Roxborough, HollywoodReporter, 11 June 2025

The first Gulf War liberated an oppressed population. —Arthur I. Cyr, Chicago Tribune, 27 May 2025

Kid is a member of an oppressed race who was driven to terrorism by the acts of the corporation that destroyed his home planet and vilified his race. —Ryan Woodrow, MSNBC Newsweek, 17 May 2025

Atwood’s novel allows readers to map June’s hardship onto virtually any era in which women feel oppressed (which, horrifically, is every era in American history). —Ben Travers, IndieWire, 8 Apr. 2025

Word History

First Known Use

15th century, in the meaning defined above

Phrases Containing oppressed

• the oppressed

Rhymes for oppressed

• acquiesced
• coalesced
• dispossessed
• manifest
• overdressed
• overstressed
• prepossessed
• reassessed
• reinvest
• repossessed
• unaddressed
• uncompressed