oppress is means put pressure on something or someone, in order to reduce.
It is an indirect transitive verb that comes from the Latin term opprime. Op is the same as the prefix ob, and means over or against. While press is to press, to press.
Oppressing a person means reducing him or putting strong pressure on him. Socially oppressing is making a person feel small, or nothing, that no action they take will change their social status or their life.
Oppressing is a way of imposing yourself through force or violence, a form of authoritarian action.
And it's also a way to afflict, to make you afflicted. Or as they say in popular parlance, with a "squeezed heart". That is, overwhelmed.
The oppressive action leaves the oppressed without attitude, overwhelmed, reduced or dejected. And it only helps to increase oppression, as it is encountering little or no resistance.
oppress and repress
Repressing is hiding or dissimulating, more used in the sense of not letting manifest. While the verb oppress is more in a psychological condition of putting pressure on a certain thing.
Both words can be synonymous at certain times. Just as they can also occur simultaneously. An oppressed person, when trying to manifest himself, can be repressed. And a repressed is one who is constantly oppressed
Synonyms of Overwhelm
- Master
- Humiliate
- vex
- Compress
- Hold tight
- encumber
- Overload
- torment
- afflict
- harass
- Prevent
- bully
- Enslave
See also oppressed and Oppression.