Meaning of subjugation in English

subjugation

noun [ U ]

formal

/ˌsʌb.dʒəˈɡeɪ.ʃən/ us

/ˌsʌb.dʒəˈɡeɪ.ʃən/

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the act of defeating people or a country and ruling them in a way that allows them no freedom:

They are bravely resisting subjugation by their more powerful neighbours.

the act of treating a person or their wishes or beliefs as less important than other people or their wishes or beliefs:

The subjugation of women is a central theme in her work.

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Hitler's main objective was the total subjugation of the Soviet Union.
The most famous campaign in the conquest is Hernando Cortes's invasion and subjugation of Mexico in 1519-21.
Do people really think the subjugation of the Aboriginal peoples never happened?
India suffered a long period of colonial subjugation.
For twenty years over fifteen million people were kept in absolute subjugation.
Racial subjugation was enforced by law.
He did not run away, believing his subjugation would secure him a place in paradise.

SMART Vocabulary: related words and phrases

Ruling & governing

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Stop having or doing something

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subjugate

(Definition of subjugation from the Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary & Thesaurus © Cambridge University Press)

Examples of subjugation

subjugation

The resulting problem seemed stark, if not insurmountable: while subjugation compromised attempts at assimilation, assimilation would falter in the absence of the necessary transformation.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

Traditional marriage was thus predicated on the assumption of female inferiority and her necessary subjugation to men.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

In the village there was, of course, economic hardship, physical strain, battering and above all male control and subjugation.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

Support for people in their own resolves and thus in exercising their own liberty, rather than subjugation to idealist tutelage, had a wide appeal.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

Subjugation could be s. exercised over a number of domains-first and foremost of which was one's own self.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

During the subjugation of the developing world, explorers often screened agricultural materials for new and useful purposes.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

Though these divisions had not crystallised into clear-cut stereotypes, a search for cultural identity in a colonial climate of subjugation needed a framework of distinction.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

She 'participated willingly if unwittingly in an ideological process that ultimately reinforced the colonizers' cultural subjugation of the colonized' (p. 98).

From the Cambridge English Corpus

Interaction between customers and salespersons is characterized by domination of a transaction frame and subjugation of valet and consultation frames.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

Through the conditioning of subjects' desires - whether by those subjects themselves or by their oppressors - a state of subjugation may masquerade as one of freedom.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

The surroundings emphasise the spatial, economic and social legacy of subjugation that should never be forgotten.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

Perhaps the most radical change would be the effective subjugation of research to the higher goal of product development.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

Military subjugation led inexorably to the expropriation of land and to the arrival of 1 million colonial settlers.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

Mostly they were kept in a position of dependency through subtle forms of subjugation, but occasionally they managed to attain leadership positions.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

Such an apparently "primitive" government, however powerful in its own context, would seem incapable of real resistance to imperial subjugation.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

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These examples are from corpora and from sources on the web. Any opinions in the examples do not represent the opinion of the Cambridge Dictionary editors or of Cambridge University Press or its licensors.

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