Definition

1. Verb:
   • To subject to aggressive pressure or intimidation: To persistently annoy, attack, or bother someone, creating a stressful or hostile environment.
   • To exhaust by repeated attacks: To wear down or fatigue through continual pressure or assault.

Usage and Examples

• Verb:
  • The manager was accused of trying to harass employees who reported safety violations.
  • The lawyer warned the journalist not to harass the witness.
  • The general's strategy was to harass the enemy's supply lines, weakening their position.

Advanced Usage and Nuances

• Legal and Workplace Context: "Harass" often carries a serious connotation in contexts involving discrimination, bullying, or creating a hostile environment. It implies a pattern of behavior, not a single incident.
  • The company has a strict policy against any behavior that could harass or intimidate coworkers.
• Military/Tactical Context: Used to describe a strategy of small, persistent attacks intended to weaken an opponent without engaging in full battle.
  • Guerrilla fighters used the terrain to harass the larger, less mobile force.

Variants and Related Words

• Harassment (n): The act or an instance of harassing, or the state of being harassed. Often used in legal terms (e.g., sexual harassment, workplace harassment).
  • She filed a formal complaint about the harassment.
• Harasser (n): A person who harasses someone.
  • The harasser was issued a restraining order.

Synonyms

• Pester: To bother persistently, often in a petty or annoying way.
• Badger: To pester or annoy persistently.
• Harry: To harass, annoy, or torment (similar in meaning and origin).
• Torment: To cause severe suffering, often mentally or emotionally.

Related Phrasal Verbs/Constructions

• To harass someone into doing something: To pressure or pester someone relentlessly until they comply.
  • He harassed his parents into buying him the new game.

Related Idioms/Phrases

• (To be) under harassment: To be in a state of being persistently bothered or attacked.
  • The whistleblower claimed to be under constant harassment from former colleagues.
• A campaign of harassment: A sustained, organized effort to intimidate or wear someone down.
  • The political activist faced a campaign of harassment from online trolls.

Verb

1. exhaust by attacking repeatedly
   • harass the enemy
2. annoy continually or chronically
   • He is known to harry his staff when he is overworked
   • This man harasses his female co-workers