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An officer or magistrate chosen by the people, to protect them from the oppression of the patricians, or nobles, and to defend their liberties against any attempts that might be made upon them by the senate and consuls.

nment. "A power tyrannical." Shak. Our sects a more tyrannic power assume. Roscommon. The oppressor ruled tyrannic where he durst. Pope. -- Ty*ran"nic*al*ly, adv. -- Ty*ran"nic*al*ness, .

To act the tyrant; to exercise arbitrary power; to rule with unjust and oppressive severity; to exercise power others not permitted by law or required by justice, or with a severity not necessary to the ends of justice and government; as, a prince will often tyrannize over his subjects; masters sometimes tyrannize over…

Specifically, a monarch, or other ruler or master, who uses power to oppress his subjects; a person who exercises unlawful authority, or lawful authority in an unlawful manner; one who by taxation, injustice, or cruel punishment, or the demand of unreasonable services, imposes burdens and hardships on those under his c…

Denoting relation to some thing or person that is superior, weighs upon, oppresses, bows down, governs, directs, influences powerfully, or the like, in a relation of subjection, subordination, obligation, liability, or the like; as, to travel under a heavy load; to live under extreme oppression; to have fortitude under…

To take upon one's self, or assume, any business, duty, or province. O Lord, I am oppressed; undertake for me. Isa. xxxviii. 14.

Oppressed with weight; crushed; weighed down. [Obs.] Tusser.

being weary or tried; lassitude; exhaustion of strength; fatigue. With weariness and wine oppressed. Dryden. A man would die, though he were neither valiant nor miserable, only upon a weariness to do the same thing so oft over and over. Bacon.

Shak. All that she so dear did weigh. Spenser. To weigh down. (a) To overbalance. (b) To oppress with weight; to overburden; to depress. "To weigh thy spirits down." Milton.

To subject to extortion; to afflict, or oppress, in order to enforce compliance. To wring the widow from her 'customed right. Shak. The merchant adventures have been often wronged and wringed to the quick. Hayward.

to follow the example of their sovereign in writhing money from them by every species of oppression. Sir W. Scott.

meanness first this Portsmouth Yankey rose, And still to meanness all his conduct flows. Oppression, A poem by an American (Boston, 1765).