How to Use oppress in a Sentence

oppress

verb
  • The country has long been oppressed by a ruthless dictator.
  • They condemned attempts by the government to oppress its citizens.
  • She was oppressed by his big shadow.
    — Marta Balaga, Variety, 16 Feb. 2026
  • People were oppressed in that time.
    — Christopher Arnott, Hartford Courant, 30 Apr. 2026
  • What color are the people who feel as though they are oppressed here?
    — Monique Judge, The Root, 31 May 2018
  • Our systems were built to oppress people of color.
    — The Editorial Board, Oc Register, 19 Oct. 2025
  • Craven’s strict schedule, a measured pace from morning till night, doesn’t oppress her.
    — BostonGlobe.com, 12 Apr. 2021
  • Craven’s strict schedule, a measured pace from morning till night, doesn’t oppress her.
    — Globe Staff, BostonGlobe.com, 28 Aug. 2023
  • The people are oppressed, have censorship and no hope.
    — Lauryn Overhultz, FOXNews.com, 19 May 2026
  • Their way of life is to claim they are being oppressed if they are not allowed to oppress others.
    — Monica Hesse, Washington Post, 26 Aug. 2020
  • The belief in good over evil and the belief that oppressed people cannot be oppressed all the time.
    — Brande Victorian, The Hollywood Reporter, 8 Feb. 2024
  • These celebrities are not standing up for people that are being oppressed.
    — Seth Abramovitch, The Hollywood Reporter, 18 Sep. 2024
  • The men are seen as misogynistic, and the women are oppressed.
    — Deena Elgenaidi, PEOPLE, 11 Oct. 2025
  • No one state should be allowed to dominate the process, nor should the big states be allowed to oppress the small.
    — Thomas G. Moukawsher, Newsweek, 5 Nov. 2024
  • Music is supposed to be the voice of the oppressed—the actual oppressed.
    — Emily Tannenbaum, Glamour, 16 Sep. 2023
  • Music is supposed to be the voice of the oppressed — the actual oppressed.
    — Jessica Nicholson, Billboard, 15 Sep. 2023
  • The hopeless cycle of debt that oppresses people and nations alike is not a law of nature.
    — Charles Eisenstein, Quartz, 27 Aug. 2019
  • Kono’s women tend to be oppressed by chronic illnesses and vivid nightmares.
    — Sam Sacks, WSJ, 22 Nov. 2018
  • Your structure sorts the whole world into two boxes, oppressor and oppressed.
    — Joyce Kamanitz, Hartford Courant, 25 June 2026
  • Discussions with the creative team led to the idea of showing how oppressed the animals were.
    — Jazz Tangcay, Variety, 12 Jan. 2026
  • Anyone who’s in power can barely resist the urge to oppress people with less power.
    — Mathew Rodriguez, Them., 23 Sep. 2025
  • Covert was a home to free and prosperous black men and women at a time when their country’s policies were designed to oppress them.
    — William A. Schambra and Bob Woodson, WSJ, 6 Feb. 2023
  • If white men are constantly conspiring to oppress the rest of the world, why can't the Left rig an election?
    — Joseph Simonson, Washington Examiner, 10 Dec. 2020
  • Sometimes, as in Cuba, people who speak in the name of the oppressed simply want to use them as tools for power.
    — Martin Peretz, WSJ, 14 Mar. 2018
  • Young women are being taught that men have all the power and have used it throughout history to oppress women.
    — Jeanie Pyun, The Hollywood Reporter, 2 Oct. 2017
  • Back in the city, the scheming and backstabbing and oppressing continues apace.
    — Katie Walsh, Twin Cities, 8 Mar. 2025
  • Near the end of the song, his lyrics suggest how the exploited and oppressed are convinced to play within the confines of this system.
    — refinery29.com, 6 May 2018
  • The women are not oppressed, and the characters grapple with living in between two cultures.
    — Deena Elgenaidi, PEOPLE, 11 Oct. 2025
  • It was built to oppress, it was built to control, it was built to shape our culture in a specific way that kept some people here and some people here.
    — Essence, 10 June 2019
  • One island off the coast of South Korea may have blown up, but no one will stop the wealthy from oppressing and crushing the poor.
    — Kelly Lawler, USA Today, 28 June 2025

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'oppress.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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