persecution
/ˌpɝsəˈkjuʃən/
Word Rarity
Rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 3.72 in modern English
15
Scrabble Score
11
Letters
4
Syllables
10
Unique Chars
Meaning
noun
The act of persecuting, especially a specific group of people; an instance of persecution.
Countable; Uncountable
Example Sentences
- "Many apartheid perpetrators escaped prosecution for their persecution of black Africans and political dissidents."
- "During the early 20th century, wolves were considered undesirable. They were subject to persecution and were extirpated from large areas of their original range. With increased environmental awareness in the 1970s, attitudes toward wolves began to change."
- "[…] to support or agree with the persecutions, beatings, dehumanizings, insults, murders, genocides, and oppressions of a perpetrator's target […]"
- "Few concepts are as emotionally charged as that of race. The word conjures up a mixture of associations—culture, ethnicity, genetics, subjugation, exclusion and persecution. But is the tragic history of efforts to define groups of people by race really a matter of the misuse of science, the abuse of a valid biological concept?"
- "I see this not as persecution, but a learning chance to grow."
Etymology
Equivalent to persecute + -ion. From Middle English persecucioun, from Old French persecucion, from Ecclesiastical Latin persecūtio (“persecution; chase, pursuit”), from Latin persequor (“follow up, pursue”), from per- (“through”) + sequor (“follow”). Displaced native Old English ēhtnes.
Origin
Word Breakdown
Regional Pronunciation
- American English: /ˌpɝsəˈkjuʃən/
- British English: /ˌpɜːsəˈkjuːʃən/