These words mean to harass or torment, another person so persistently as to disturb his peace of mind or undermine his self-confidence. Beleaguer , from its literal meaning of surrounding and shutting in an enemy force with one’s own army, carries the implication of a hemming in on all sides by a multitude, so that escape is virtually impossible: a landlord beleaguered by complaining tenants; a man beleaguered by worries; a countryside beleaguered by a plague of locusts.

Hound strongly suggests the relentless and unflagging pursuit of a hunting dog on the scent: an escaped criminal hounded from city to city by police. By extension, hound also implies repeated urging, especially to the point where the victim can do little except submit: to be hounded by bill collectors; a teacher hounded from his job because of his political views.

The literal meaning of bait is to set dogs for sport on a chained or penned animal, especially a bear or a bull. Figuratively, bait implies malicious pleasure in tormenting another by teasing and ridicule, especially when retaliation is difficult: baited by the other boys at school for his poor showing in sports; to bait an old man whose ideas are not in agreement with yours. Bait may also mean to tease or twit in a more or less amiable way: He baited his wife for spending so much time talking on the telephone.

Ride , which is chiefly colloquial, evokes the action of urging a mount on to greater speed by the use of spurs or a whip. Therefore, ride may imply driving or goading someone to reach a goal (not necessarily an undesirable one), but often suggests mischievous or malicious intent.

• Parents complain that the fifth-grade teacher rides her brighter pupils too hard; The boys at the office are always riding me because my wife calls me at five o’clock sharp every day to make sure I’m coming straight home.

Heckle emphasizes the harassing of a speaker in public by means of taunts, questions, and other interruptions in order to confuse or intimidate him or to ferret out the weaknesses in his argument: to heckle a candidate for political office; to heckle the leader of an anti-war demonstration.

Hector strongly suggests bullying and browbeating by scolding or derision: an authoritarian father who hectors his children instead of trying to understand them; a warder who keeps order by hectoring his prisoners.