Synonyms for persecute
ˈpɜr sɪˌkyutper·se·cute

WiktionaryRate these synonyms:2.1 / 8 votes

1. persecuteverb

   Synonyms:
   distress, oppress, harass, annoy, worry

2. persecuteverb

   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.

   Do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you. – Matt. 5:44.

   Synonyms:
   annoy, distress, harass, oppress, worry

3. persecuteverb

   To harass with importunity; to pursue with persistent solicitations; to annoy.

   Synonyms:
   distress, oppress, harass, worry, annoy

English Synonyms and AntonymsRate these synonyms:3.0 / 2 votes

1. persecute

   Abuse covers all unreasonable or improper use or treatment by word or act. A tenant does not abuse rented property by "reasonable wear," though that may damage the property and injure its sale; he may abuse it by needless defacement or neglect. It is possible to abuse a man without harming him, as when the criminal vituperates the judge; or to harm a man without abusing him, as when the witness tells the truth about the criminal. Defame, malign, rail at, revile, slander, vilify, and vituperate are used always in a bad sense. One may be justly reproached. To impose on or to victimize one is to injure him by abusing his confidence. To persecute one is to ill-treat him for opinion's sake, commonly for religious belief; to oppress is generally for political or pecuniary motives. "Thou shalt not oppress an hired servant that is poor and needy," Deut. xxiv, 14. Misemploy, misuse, and pervert are commonly applied to objects rather than to persons. A dissolute youth misemploys his time, misuses his money and opportunities, harms his associates, perverts his talents, wrongs his parents, ruins himself, abuses every good gift of God.

   Synonyms:
   abuse, aggrieve, damage, defame, defile, disparage, harm, ill-treat, ill-use, impose on, impose upon, injure, malign, maltreat, misemploy, misuse, molest, oppress, pervert, prostitute, rail at, ravish, reproach, revile, ruin, slander, victimize, vilify, violate, vituperate, wrong

   Antonyms:
   applaud, benefit, care for, cherish, conserve, consider, eulogize, extol, favor, laud, panegyrize, praise, protect, regard, respect, shield, sustain, tend, uphold, vindicate

Complete Dictionary of Synonyms and AntonymsRate these synonyms:5.0 / 1 vote

1. persecute

   Synonyms:
   harass, molest, annoy, worry, vex

   Antonyms:
   encourage, inspirit, abet, support

Princeton's WordNetRate these synonyms:4.0 / 3 votes

1. persecute, oppressverb

   cause to suffer

   "Jews were persecuted in the former Soviet Union"

   Synonyms:
   oppress, suppress, crush

Dictionary of English SynonymesRate these synonyms:4.0 / 1 vote

1. persecuteverb

   Synonyms:
   oppress, harass, afflict, molest, distress, worry, hunt down, run down, pursue malignantly, drive from pillar to post

Synonyms, Antonyms & Associated WordsRate these synonyms:0.0 / 0 votes

1. persecuteverb

   Synonyms:
   harass, oppress, tyrannize, torment, dragoon, importune, annoy, hector, badger

PPDB, the paraphrase databaseRate these paraphrases:0.0 / 0 votes

1. List of paraphrases for "persecute":

   haunt, prosecute, pursue

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How to use persecute in a sentence?

1. Joyce:

   Everyone, whether cardinal or scientist, who believes that his own truth is complete and final must become a dogmatist...The more sincere his faith, the more he is bound to persecute, to save others from falling into error.

2. Ralph Waldo Emerson:

   Universities are of course hostile to geniuses, which, seeing and using ways of their own, discredit the routine as churches and monasteries persecute youthful saints.

3. Henry Thomas Buckle:

   If you can impress any man with an absorbing conviction of the supreme importance of some moral or religious doctrine if you can make him believe that those who reject that doctrine are doomed to eternal perdition if you then give that man power, and by means of his ignorance blind him to the ulterior consequences of his own act,-he will infallibly persecute those who deny his doctrine.

4. Edmund Burke:

   In doing good, we are generally cold, and languid, and sluggish; and of all things afraid of being too much in the right. But the works of malice and injustice are quite in another style. They are finished with a bold, masterly hand; touched as they are with the spirit of those vehement passions that call forth all our energies, whenever we oppress and persecute.

5. Ibrahim Hooper:

   This is way beyond the pale, this is basically a call to persecute a religious minority based on nothing other than their faith.