oppressive
/əˈpɹɛs.ɪv/adjective
oppressive is spelled O-P-P-R-E-S-S-I-V-E. The wrong spelling people search most is opressive: about 70 Bing searches a month in the United States (September 2025 to August 2026), about 1 in 10 of all searches for the word. Oppressive is an adjective meaning “Burdensome or difficult to bear”.
How many letters and syllables are in oppressive?
| Letters | 10: O-P-P-R-E-S-S-I-V-E |
|---|---|
| Syllables | 3 (from its American pronunciation) |
| In writing | 2.8 times per million words; the 16,005th most frequent word form |
| Wrong spellings searched | 1; the most searched, opressive, about 70 Bing searches a month (all of them) |
Sources: letters and syllables from the English Wiktionary's hyphenation or pronunciation and the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary; written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media); Bing searches in the United States: the average month from September 2025 to August 2026 (Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, read September 30, 2026).
How do you spell oppressive?
Oppressive is spelled O-P-P-R-E-S-S-I-V-E. One wrong spelling is searched or written often enough to measure; together they are about 1 in 10 of the searches for oppressive in either form.
Bing searches in the United States: the average month from September 2025 to August 2026 (Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, read September 30, 2026). Wrong spellings are taken from Wiktionary entries tagged "misspelling" and its obsolete or nonstandard forms, Wikipedia's Lists of common misspellings and the codespell dictionary, then measured. The proofreader's marks show the change that corrects each one.
How common is oppressive?
Oppressive appears 2.8 times per million words in written English, the 16,005th most frequent word form in the list.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
How do you pronounce oppressive?
- /əˈpɹɛs.ɪv/
- /əʊˈpɹɛs.ɪv/
Oppressive has 3 syllables (counted from its American pronunciation in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary).
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: LL-Q1860_(eng)-I_learned_some_phrases-oppressive.wav, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
Forms of oppressive
- more oppressive comparative
- most oppressive superlative
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
What does oppressive mean?
The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).
adjective
- 1
Burdensome or difficult to bear.
The oppressive tax laws made it difficult to start a small company.
- 2
Tyrannical or exercising unjust power.
oppressive smell
- 3
Weighing heavily on the spirit; being quite intense, excessive or overwhelming.
Will the oppressive heat of summer never end?
- 4
Hot and humid.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Oppressive in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
| Language | Words |
|---|---|
| French | oppressif , oppressant |
| Spanish | opresivo , opresivo; tiranico |
| German | drückend , oppressiv, unterdrückend |
| Portuguese | opressivo, opressor, oprimente |
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.
Where does oppressive come from?
From oppress + -ive.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).