What does oppress mean?
Word: Oppress
Part of Speech: Verb
Meaning: Oppress means to rule or treat people cruelly and unfairly, keeping them down by force.
Synonyms: persecute, crush, tyrannise
Antonyms: free
How do you spell oppress?
Syllables: op - press
Tricky part: There is a double p and a double ss. Students who hear only one p write opress.
Watch out for: opress, oppres, opres
Memory tip: Two pairs to keep: pp straight after the o and ss at the very end, the same two pairs you see in happiness.
Oppress in a sentence
Example 1: Freedom fighters stood up against rulers who oppressed the people.
Example 2: The heat seemed to oppress the whole town during May.
Example 3: A fair leader does not oppress anyone, rich or poor.
Fun Fact
Oppress comes from the Latin opprimere, made of ob, against, and premere, to push down, so to oppress people first meant to push them down.
Practise the CREST Way
Word Connection
Choose the antonym of the word: oppress
a) liberate
b) dominate
c) torment
d) burden
Show answer
a) liberate. Burden, torment and dominate all weigh people down; liberate means set them free.
Spell-o-Spell
Choose the correctly spelt word:
a) oppress
b) slavary
c) rebelion
d) independance
Show answer
a) oppress. Slavery has an e before ry, rebellion a double l, and independence ends in ence.
Word Cookie
Find the misspelt word in the sentence:
In the old story, the greedy king used heavy taxes to opprass the farmers of his land.
a) heavy
b) opprass
c) greedy
d) farmers
Show answer
b) opprass. The vowel is e, as in press.
Mingle-Mangle
Form a meaningful word from the jumbled letters:
sperpos
a) prosper
b) possess
c) oppress
d) oppose
Show answer
c) oppress. Oppose has only one s, possess needs four s's, and prosper needs a second r, so the answer is oppress.
Multiple Choice Questions
1. In 'The heat seemed to oppress the whole town', oppress means to ____.
a) make people feel heavy and tired
b) make people move out of town
c) make people forget their work
d) make people feel fresh and lively
Show answer
a) make people feel heavy and tired
2. Which is the noun of oppress?
a) oppressity
b) oppressance
c) oppressment
d) oppression
Show answer
d) oppression
