Persecution

4 definitions found

From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48 [gcide]:

  Persecution \Per`se*cu"tion\, n. [F. pers['e]cution, L.
     persecutio.]
     1. The act or practice of persecuting; especially, the
        infliction of loss, pain, or death for adherence to a
        particular creed or mode of worship.
        [1913 Webster]


  
              Persecution produces no sincere conviction. --Paley.
        [1913 Webster]
  
     2. The state or condition of being persecuted. --Locke.
        [1913 Webster]
  
     3. A carrying on; prosecution. [Obs.]
        [1913 Webster]

From WordNet (r) 2.0 [wn]:

  persecution
       n : the act of persecuting (especially on the basis of race or
           religion)

From Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0 [moby-thes]:

  65 Moby Thesaurus words for "persecution":
     McCarthyism, abuse, affliction, aggravation, annoyance, bad news,
     bedevilment, bore, bother, botheration, bothersomeness, bullying,
     clawing, crashing bore, cruciation, crucifixion, devilment,
     difficulty, dogging, downer, drag, exasperation, harassing,
     harassment, harrying, headache, hectoring, hell, hell upon earth,
     holocaust, horror, hounding, ill-treatment, irritation, laceration,
     lancination, maltreatment, martyrdom, molestation, nightmare,
     nuisance, oppression, outrage, passion, pest, problem, punishment,
     purgatory, rack, red-baiting, subjugation, suppression, torment,
     tormenting, torture, trial, trouble, tyranny, vexation,
     vexatiousness, victimization, witch-hunt, witch-hunting, worriment,
     worry
  
  

From Easton's 1897 Bible Dictionary [easton]:

  Persecution
     The first great persecution for religious opinion of which we
     have any record was that which broke out against the worshippers
     of God among the Jews in the days of Ahab, when that king, at
     the instigation of his wife Jezebel, "a woman in whom, with the
     reckless and licentious habits of an Oriental queen, were united
     the fiercest and sternest qualities inherent in the old Semitic
     race", sought in the most relentless manner to extirpate the
     worship of Jehovah and substitute in its place the worship of
     Ashtoreth and Baal. Ahab's example in this respect was followed
     by Manasseh, who "shed innocent blood very much, till he had
     filled Jerusalem from one end to another" (2 Kings 21:16; comp.
     24:4). In all ages, in one form or another, the people of God
     have had to suffer persecution. In its earliest history the
     Christian church passed through many bloody persecutions. Of
     subsequent centuries in our own and in other lands the same sad
     record may be made.
     
       Christians are forbidden to seek the propagation of the gospel
     by force (Matt. 7:1; Luke 9:54-56; Rom. 14:4; James 4:11, 12).
     The words of Ps. 7:13, "He ordaineth his arrows against the
     persecutors," ought rather to be, as in the Revised Version, "He
     maketh his arrows fiery [shafts]."