as in harshness
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Example Sentences
Recent Examples of Synonyms for oppressiveness
Noun
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Sunlight naturally sanitizes, and air drying prevents the harshness of high heat.—
Ashlyn Needham,
Southern Living,
14 Feb. 2026 -
The tinted visor that Morgan Geekie wore for two games against the Chicago Blackhawks and Dallas Stars in January could help mute the lights’ harshness.—
Fluto Shinzawa,
New York Times,
1 Feb. 2026
Noun
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Wuthering Heights simultaneously puts too much malevolence on Nelly’s shoulders while also making her final decisions sort of nonsensical, even ambiguous.—
Roxana Hadadi,
Vulture,
13 Feb. 2026
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Almost: Childhood is both bliss and terror, and the Richard D. James Album takes care to wrap malevolence and innocence tightly into the same steel coil.—
Sasha Geffen,
Pitchfork,
21 Jan. 2026
Noun
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The Hims & Hers ad is shrewd in its heavy-handedness.—
Yasmin Tayag,
The Atlantic,
8 Feb. 2026
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Beijing was selected over Almaty, Kazakhstan, as the 2022 host city after four other candidates, including Oslo and Stockholm, withdrew citing costs, high public opposition and IOC heavy-handedness.—
Scott M. Reid,
Oc Register,
30 Jan. 2026
Noun
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Comment sections have always attracted hatefulness and resentment; these ones just happen to encourage it more explicitly.—
Rebecca Jennings,
Vulture,
30 Sep. 2025
Noun
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His Cyrano is the play’s hero, even if the character’s psychological limitations are as much a factor in the story as the machinations of De Guiche, whose malignity is sent up in Nathanson’s flamboyantly comic turn.—
Charles McNulty,
Los Angeles Times,
10 Sep. 2024
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For a decade, the central drama of Trumpism has concerned the Republican élites who continued to support him—the story has been about their malignity, or opportunism, or willful moral blindness.—
Benjamin Wallace-Wells,
The New Yorker,
16 Sep. 2023
Noun
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The guy was a sleaze, but there’s a pretty big gap between sleaziness and murderousness.—
Sophie Brookover,
Vulture,
12 Dec. 2025
Noun
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Happily, there are pleasures that precede this grimness.—
Helen Shaw,
New Yorker,
18 Dec. 2025
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Even in the grimness of war, the photographer manages to find beauty in his subjects.—
Hikmat Mohammed,
Footwear News,
20 Oct. 2025
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Cite this Entry
“Oppressiveness.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/oppressiveness. Accessed 27 Feb. 2026.
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