harassment

/həˈræsmɪnt/

/ˈhʌræsmənt/

Other forms: harassments

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.

Definitions of harassment

1. noun

   the act of tormenting by continued persistent attacks and criticism
   synonyms: molestation

   types:

   baiting

   harassment especially of a tethered animal

   badgering, bedevilment, torment, worrying

   the act of harassing someone

   sexual harassment

   unwelcome sexual behavior by a supervisor toward an employee

   ribbing, tantalization, tease, teasing

   the act of harassing someone playfully or maliciously (especially by ridicule); provoking someone with persistent annoyances

   witch-hunt

   searching out and harassing dissenters

   McCarthyism

   unscrupulously accusing people of disloyalty (as by saying they were Communists)

   type of:

   mistreatment

   the practice of treating (someone or something) badly
2. noun

   a feeling of intense annoyance caused by being tormented
   “so great was his harassment that he wanted to destroy his tormentors”

   synonyms: torment

   type of:

   annoyance, chafe, vexation

   anger produced by some annoying irritation