Word Finder - abuse

definition

Improper treatment or usage; application to a wrong or bad purpose; an unjust, corrupt or wrongful practice or custom.

example

All abuse, whether physical, verbal, psychological or sexual, is bad.

synonyms

• misuse

definition

Misuse; improper use; perversion.

definition

A delusion; an imposture; misrepresentation; deception.

definition

Coarse, insulting speech; abusive language; language that unjustly or angrily vilifies.

synonyms

• contumely
• insult
• invective
• opprobrium
• reproach
• scurrility

definition

Catachresis.

synonyms

• abusio

definition

Physical maltreatment; injury; cruel treatment.

definition

Violation; defilement; rape; forcing of undesired sexual activity by one person on another, often on a repeated basis.

Fine, but I'm not going to let him verbally abuse you.

When he doth abuse it, judge."

Merry senseless words of abuse flowed freely.

The electoral districts so formed are expected to be equal in proportion to the number of inhabitants; but this method has led to much abuse in the past, through the making of unequal districts for partisan purposes.

It is also used as a term of abuse, meaning "boor."

On his return to Liegnitz he helped to spread the principles of the Reformation in the principality and in Silesia, while warning his colleagues against the abuse of the doctrine of justification by faith.

This abuse resulted in an overhaul of the system that sought to tie the poor to their original parish.

The only excuse made for the alternate cringing and insult, the alternate abuse and lying, which marked his course in this matter, has been the very weak plea that a man cannot fight with a system - a plea which is sufficiently answered by the retort that a great many men have so fought and have won.

Thus annates were abolished, the abuse of "reservation" of the patronage of benefices by the pope was much limited, and the right claimed by the pope of "next presentation" to benefices not yet vacant (known as gratiae expectativae) was done away with altogether.

During the hour Pierre watched them they all came flowing from the different streets with one and the same desire to get on quickly; they all jostled one another, began to grow angry and to fight, white teeth gleamed, brows frowned, ever the same words of abuse flew from side to side, and all the faces bore the same swaggeringly resolute and coldly cruel expression that had struck Pierre that morning on the corporal's face when the drums were beating.

I suppose you had a raft of this abuse stuff back in Pennsylvania.

He also persuaded his colleagues to grant some rather scandalous pensions, and Fox's acquiescence in this abuse after his recent agitation against Lord North's waste did him injury.

From them he heard plenty of abuse of stock-jobbing, and seizing their ideas he began to regard stock-jobbing, or agiotage, as the source of all evil, and to attack in his usual vehement style the Banque de St Charles and the Compagnie des Eaux.

The French ambassador, de la Haye, had delayed bringing him the customary gifts, with the idea that he would, like his predecessors, speedily give place to a new grand vizier; Kuprili was bitterly offended, and, on pretext of an abuse of the immunities of diplomatic correspondence, bastinadoed the ambassador's son and cast him and the ambassador himself into prison.

I cannot bear this level of abuse.

This system had the merit of counteracting any abuse of power by the bureaucracy.

Surely their marriage could never survive this kind of abuse.

The inhabitants of Berlin, headed by their mayor, came out to meet him, and the newspapers lavished adulation on the victors and abuse on the beaten army.

This was more flagrantly illustrated in one of his latest works, The Treatise Concerning the Use and Abuse of the Marriage Bed (1727), which was originally issued with a much more offensive name, and has been called "an excellent book with an improper title."

The reprint (3 vols.) edited for the "Pulteney Library" by Hazlitt in 1840-1843 contains a good and full life mainly derived from Wilson, the whole of the novels (including the Serious Reflections now hardly ever published with Robinson Crusoe), Jure Divino, The Use and Abuse of Marriage, and many of the more important tracts and smaller works.

Several wounded men passed along the road, and words of abuse, screams, and groans mingled in a general hubbub, then the firing died down.

It will be found an unjust and unwise jealousy to deprive a man of his natural liberty upon a supposition he may abuse it.

In consequence of the freedom with which in this work he attacked the abuse of authority in philosophy, he lost his professorial chair.

If, however, they are not published, and are given to certain persons as individual favours, they become a prolific source of abuse, and are quite indefensible from the standpoint of political economy.

He also contemplated a thorough-going reform of the ferme generale, but contented himself, as a beginning, with imposing certain conditions on the leases as they were renewed - such as a more efficient personnel, and the abolition for the future of the abuse of the croupes (the name given to a class of pensions), a reform which Terray had shirked on finding how many persons in high places were interested in them, and annulling certain leases, such as those of the manufacture of gunpowder and the administration of the messageries, the former of which was handed over to a company with the scientist Lavoisier as one of its advisers, and the latter superseded by a quicker and more comfortable service of diligences which were nicknamed" turgotines."He also prepared a regular budget.

Immense harm was done to both by the publication of a book called The Beauties of Fox, North and Burke, a compilation of their abuse of one another in recent years.

The object is the protection of widows and orphans, but the right has been very much abused, and its abuse is in part responsible for the high rate of interest which prevails.

The idea of encouraging the citizens to assist in the detection of crime or treason against the state was commendable; it was not the use, but the abuse of the privilege that was so injurious.

The village elder, a peasant delegate, and the village clerk, who were waiting in the passage, heard with fear and delight first the young count's voice roaring and snapping and rising louder and louder, and then words of abuse, dreadful words, ejaculated one after the other.

While this opportunity of educating and training a docile people was in the main neglected, savage abuse of power by their chiefs was prevented.

Drug addiction and drug abuse issues are becoming quite common among teens.

The latter, indeed, prosecuted the former for libel and for abuse of his position when premier, but after many vicissitudes, including the flight of Giolitti to Berlin in.

His book on Materialism and Empiric Criticism (1909) heaps abuse on idealistic philosophers and religious teachers of all schools and creeds.

This abuse of language brought him back to Leibnitz.

He made huge forced loans, and employed recklessly the abuse of purveyance.

The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration reports that approximately 2.1 million teens have used prescription drugs such as pain relievers, tranquilizers, stimulants and depressants in 2006.

Verbal abuse often causes as much damage to the victim emotionally as hitting or pushing.

It doesn't matter who you are or what type of drug you are taking, drug abuse is a dangerous practice.

Drug addiction and drug abuse have been serious problems among teens for many years now.

I don't want to abuse what's been given to me but I'm half sick with worry and I can't think straight.

It is easy to see that such conclusions ignore important distinctions, and are, indeed, to a large extent an abuse of language.

Well trained as was the civil service of France, the effect of this supervision in deadening activity was sometimes more marked than in its effect in preventing abuse.

These rights, whether of monopoly or of subsidy, form a means of abuse in many directions.

One of these, the Dialogue against Hypocrites, was aimed in a spirit of vindictive hatred at the vices of ecclesiastics; another, written at the request of Nicholas V., covered the anti-pope Felix with scurrilous abuse.

He seems, in fact, to have agreed with the foreign policy of the Tories and with the home policy of the Whigs, and naturally incurred the reproach of time-serving and the hearty abuse of both parties.

It is in answer to A Defence of the Government established in the Church of Englande, by Dr. John Bridges, dean of Salisbury, itself a reply to earlier puritan works, and besides attacking the episcopal office in general assails certain prelates with much personal abuse.

All his life long Spener had been exposed to the attacks and abuse of the orthodox Lutheran theologians; with his years his opponents multiplied, and the movement which he had inaugurated presented increasingly matter for hostile criticism.

In Germany the Reformers called themselves usually evangelici, and avoided special designations for their communities, which they conceived only as part of the true Catholic Church; "Calvinists," "Lutherans," "Zwinglians" were, in the main, terms of abuse intended to stamp them as followers of one or other heretical leader, like Arians or Hussites.

In January 1561 he was given the lucrative office of master of the court of wards in succession to Sir Thomas Parry, and he did something to reform that instrument of tyranny and abuse.

The classics had not refined his taste, for he was amused by setting the wandering scholars, who swarmed to his court, to abuse one another in the indescribably filthy Latin scolding matches which were then the fashion.