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choly musing. The pensive secrecy of desert cell. Milton. Anxious cares the pensive nymph oppressed. Pope.

Figuratively: To cramp; to straiten; to oppress; to starve; to distress; as, to be pinched for money. Want of room . . . pinching a whole nation. Sir W. Raleigh.

To weigh (down); to oppress. [Obs.] Lest leaden slumber peise me down to-morrow. Shak.

vise or recommend earnestly. My master preaches patience to him. Shak. To preach down, to oppress, or humiliate by preaching. Tennyson. -- To preach up, to exalt by preaching; to preach in support of; as, to preach up equality.

To oppress; to bear hard upon. Press not a falling man too far. Shak.

Pressing; urgent; also, oppressive; as, pressive taxation. [R.] Bp. Hall.

Controlled or oppressed by priests; as, a priest-ridden people. Swift.

A latent, not an exhausted, state of the vital energies; great oppression of natural strength and vigor.

One who, or that which, defends or shields from injury, evil, oppression, etc.; a defender; a guardian; a patron. For the world's protector shall be known. Waller.

es; hence, a collector of toll or tribute. The inferior officers of this class were often oppressive in their exactions, and were regarded with great detestation. As Jesus at meat . . . many publicans and sinners came and sat down with him and his disciples. Matt. 1x. 10. How like a fawning publican he looks! Shak.…

To set at rest; to free, as from anything harmful or oppressive; to relieve; to clear; to liberate. [R.] To quit you of this fear, you have already looked Death in the face; what have you found so terrible in it Wake.

To stretch or strain, in a figurative sense; hence, to harass, or oppress by extortion. The landlords there shamefully rack their tenants. Spenser. They [landlords] rack a Scripture simile beyond the true intent thereof. Fuller. Try what my credit can in Venice do; That shall be racked even to the uttermost. Shak.…

The act or practice of extorting or exacting by oppressive injustice; exorbitant greediness of gain. "The rapacity of some ages." Sprat.

To make amends or compensation to; to relieve of anything unjust or oppressive; to bestow relief upon. "'T is thine, O king! the afflicted to redress." Dryden. Will Gaul or Muscovite redress ye Byron.

They reel to and fro, and stagger like a drunken man. Ps. cvii. 27. He, with heavy fumes oppressed, Reeled from the palace, and retired to rest. Pope. The wagons reeling under the yellow sheaves. Macualay.

h hills are a refuger the wild goats. Ps. civ. 18. The Lord also will be a refuge for the oppressed. Ps. ix. 9.

To relieve from something that confines, burdens, or oppresses, as from pain, trouble, obligation, penalty.

the state of being relieved; the removal, or partial removal, of any evil, or of anything oppressive or burdensome, by which some ease is obtained; succor; alleviation; comfort; ease; redress. He seec the dire contagion spread so fast, That, where it seizes, all relief is vain. Dryden.

To ease of any imposition, burden, wrong, or oppression, by judicial or legislative interposition, as by the removal of a grievance, by indemnification for losses, or the like; to right.

state of being replete; superabundant fullness. The tree had too much repletion, and was oppressed with its own sap. Bacon. Replecioun [overeating] ne made her never sick. Chaucer.