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persecute

Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • transitive verb To oppress or harass with ill-treatment, especially because of race, religion, gender, sexual orientation, or beliefs.
  • transitive verb To annoy persistently; bother.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • 1. To pursue; follow close after.
  • To pursue with harassing or oppressive treatment; harass or afflict with repeated acts of cruelty or annoyance; injure or afflict persistently; specifically, to afflict, harass, or punish on account of opinions, as for adherence to a particular creed or system of religious principles, or to a mode of worship.
  • In a weakened sense, to harass or pursue with persistent attentions, solicitations, or other importunities; vex or annoy.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • transitive verb To pursue in a manner to injure, grieve, or afflict; to beset with cruelty or malignity; to harass; especially, to afflict, harass, punish, or put to death, for adherence to a particular religious creed or mode of worship.
  • transitive verb To harass with importunity; to pursue with persistent solicitations; to annoy.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • verb To pursue in a manner to injure, grieve, or afflict; to beset with cruelty or malignity; to harass; especially, to afflict, harass, punish, or put to death for one's race, sexual identity, adherence to a particular religious creed, or mode of worship.
  • verb To harass with importunity; to pursue with persistent solicitations; to annoy.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • verb cause to suffer

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English, from Old French persecuter, back-formation from persecuteur, persecutor, from Late Latin persecūtor, from persecūtus, past participle of persequī, to persecute, from Latin, to pursue : per-, per- + sequī, to follow; see sekw- in Indo-European roots.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From French persécuter, from Latin persequor ("follow up, pursue"), from per- (“through”) +‎ sequor (“follow”) (English sequel). Compare prosecute.

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Examples

  • And willingness to die for a hallucination one experiences and which happens to reinforce a fraudulent claim made by people one used to persecute, is a third thing.

    Darwin's God 2007

  • But I do not know anyone who is personally hurt (as opposed to theoretically offended on behalf of theoretical others) by the use of gyp, and (as I put it in the original discussion, when persecution was brought up) "None of the people who persecute the Roma use the word, and none of the people who use the word persecute Roma."

    languagehat.com 2010

  • Nay, it would show that Jesus has not saved the world, if we can go on and speak of him as an actual existence, born of a virgin and risen from the dead, and in his name persecute one another -- oppose the advance of science, deny freedom of thought, terrorize children and women with pictures of hell-fire and seek to establish a spiritual monopoly in the world, when the evidence in hand seems clearly to indicate that such a person never existed.

    The Truth about Jesus : Is He a Myth? 1901

  • So for instance a bigot who’s racist or homophobic and who’s told that his actions to discriminate are unacceptable goes on television and says that the people he/she’s trying to persecute is anti-religious …

    Think Progress » Three Years Ago Today, Bush Misled Us Into War 2005

  • To be persecuted is not wholly a calamity, but to persecute is to do that for which Nature affords no compensation.

    Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 11 Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Businessmen Elbert Hubbard 1885

  • Now the Greens, the inverts, and the liberals want them hunted down and abolished as a racist group of fascists who want to 'persecute' sodomites.

    The Journeys of the Sons of the Most Holy Redeemer 2009

  • It's really easy to force people to react badly and "persecute" you for your "message" simply by being a jerk.

    "Well, there's something known as American conservatism, though it does not even call itself that." Ann Althouse 2008

  • His reasons came from his China service, belief that Nixon was more right than the press&media that was out to hang him ever since he helped "persecute" Hiss and their Hollywood relatives.

    New light on the Nixon-Ford relationship. Ann Althouse 2006

  • There was no "working in tandem" between Harvard and the FBI, and no effort to "persecute" him by anyone at Harvard.

    'Veritas' at Harvard: Another Exchange Bellah, Robert N. 1977

  • Here is one triumphant party with arms in their hand, who have only, if they wish, to mark out a victim, and declare his religion and principles as hostile to the state; and, lo! they are at liberty, by their own regulations, to 'persecute' him!

    Valentine M'Clutchy, The Irish Agent The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two William Carleton 1831

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