The Collaborative International Dictionary
Persecute \Per"se*cute\, v. t. [imp. & p. p. Persecuted; p. pr. & vb. n. Persecuting.] [F. pers['e]cueter, L. persequi, persecutus, to pursue, prosecute; per + sequi to follow, pursue. See Per-, and Second.]
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To pursue in a manner to injure, grieve, or afflict; to beset with cruelty or malignity; to harass; especially, to afflict, harass, punish, or put to death, for adherence to a particular religious creed or mode of worship.
Do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you.
--Matt. v. 44. -
To harass with importunity; to pursue with persistent solicitations; to annoy.
--Johnson.Syn: To oppress; harass; distress; worry; annoy.
Wiktionary
vb. (en-past of: persecute)
Wikipedia
Persecuted is a 2014 American drama film written and directed by Daniel Lusko and starring James Remar, Bruce Davison, Dean Stockwell, Raoul Trujillo, Fred Thompson, Brad Stine, David House, and Tabatha Shaun.
Usage examples of "persecuted".
From the beginning of the Dreyfus case to the end of it all France, except a couple of dozen moral paladins, lay under the smother of the silent-assertion lie that no wrong was being done to a persecuted and unoffending man.
The Catholics have persecuted the Protestants with bloody and awful bitterness, but they never closed agriculture and the handicrafts against them.
The deep-buried homosexual desire for the father's penis (present in all policemen) was next cathected by denial of the father, via denial of paternal ancestory, and he began to abolish all Irish Catholic traces from ego-memory, substituting those of Jewish culture, since the Jew, as persecuted minority, reinforced his basic masochism.
The only reason we can think of is, that perhaps he had lapsed from the piety of his father and brother, and adhered to the superstition of the Chaldeans, and had afterwards emigrated thence, either through penitence, or because he was persecuted as a suspected person.
Thus are people persecuted by dragomen, whose sole ambition in life is to get ahead of each other.
Illumination was a brand of pentecostalism which was persecuted by orthodox Christianity for centuries and had become lodged in Freemasonry through a complex historical process which is impossible to explain without a major digression.
But as then he that was born after the flesh persecuted him that was born after the Spirit, even so it is now.
Wherefore also, when Saul persecuted His body, that is, His believing people, He Himself saith from heaven, "Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me?
But it may be understood thus, that many nations, when they persecuted the Christians, reproached them with the passion of Christ, which Scripture calls His change, because by dying He is made immortal.
Perhaps, however, it was not to be reckoned a persecution when the king of the Goths, in Gothia itself, persecuted the Christians with wonderful cruelty, when there were none but catholics there, of whom very many were crowned with martyrdom, as we have heard from certain brethren who had been there at that time as boys, and unhesitatingly called to mind that they had seen these things?
And the Jews themselves, who persecuted Him, He did not break, though as a bruised reed they had lost their integrity, and as smoking flax their light was quenched.
The substance of the remark was this: Some Christians were persecuted in Rome through error, they being 'mistaken for Jews.
Protestants have persecuted Catholics, but they did not take their livelihoods away from them.
The persecuted President leaned back in his chair, closed his eyes, clasped his hands in his lap, and a look of pathetic resignation crept over his long face.
All educated men were persecuted," he states a month after Thermidor 9.