harassment
Americannoun
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harassments
plural
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an act or instance of harassing; torment, vexation, or intimidation.
daily harassment by bullies at school;
the harassments of daily life.
-
the condition or fact of being harassed.
the stress of harassment and discrimination.
Pronunciation
See harass.
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Etymology
Origin of harassment
Explanation
If someone is abusing, insulting, or otherwise harming you on a regular basis, it's called harassment. Cruel and usually really annoying, harassment is also illegal in some cases. Harassment is a word that describes any kind of ongoing torment. At school, harassment is often known as bullying. In the workplace, employees need to be careful about sexual harassment. Harassment involves persistent attacks or abuse, and can range from shouting racial slurs to crank calling your ex-boyfriend every night at 3am. Even teasing your kid sister about her braces could be considered harassment.
Vocabulary lists containing harassment
Word Generation Weekly - Series 3
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Articles on Bullying
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Lincoln's Last Days
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
Clark herself has repeatedly said she doesn’t want to be used this way, that harassment of any kind isn’t acceptable and that she stands with her Black colleagues in the league.
From Salon ● Aug. 15, 2026
Two further arrests were made, one on suspicion of using words or behaviour likely to cause harassment, alarm or distress, and one on suspicion of an immigration offence.
From BBC ● Aug. 10, 2026
Instagram, which is owned by Meta, has been disabling accounts and taking down some of these pickup or prank videos for violating the platform’s rules against harassment and bullying.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 7, 2026
A journalist at the Times Higher Education magazine who probed the claims of plagiarism was reported to the police by Arday for alleged harassment.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 6, 2026
And in any case, he would never go back to her, not after everything she did to him, to us—all the harassment, all those late-night phone calls, hang-ups, text messages.
From "The Girl on the Train" by Paula Hawkins
Both have denounced harassments by China towards Philippine vessels conducting the resupply mission.
From Reuters ● Nov. 16, 2023
Japan’s Foreign Ministry issued a travel advisory on Sunday urging Japanese citizens to use extra caution in China, citing an escalation of harassments and violent protests over the discharge of the wastewater.
From Seattle Times ● Aug. 30, 2023
Between May and November 2022, she added, the number of reported harassments jumped to 14, with no assaults reported.
From Science Magazine ● Apr. 5, 2023
"Comments with personally identifiable information, harassments, or other violations will be removed."
From Salon ● Dec. 27, 2021
He had not been trained to accept them, and these daily harassments filled him with anger and hostility.
From The Black Experience in America by Norman Coombs
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
