Meaning of abuse | Babel Free

Definitions

1. Improper treatment or usage; application to a wrong or bad purpose; an unjust, corrupt or wrongful practice or custom. .mw-parser-output .defdate{font-size:smaller}
2. Improper treatment or usage; application to a wrong or bad purpose; an unjust, corrupt or wrongful practice or custom.
   countable, uncountable
3. Misuse; improper use; perversion
4. Misuse; improper use; perversion.
   countable, uncountable
5. A delusion; an imposture; misrepresentation; deception
6. A delusion; an imposture; misrepresentation; deception.
   countable, obsolete, uncountable
7. Coarse, insulting speech; abusive language; language that unjustly or angrily vilifies
8. Coarse, insulting speech; abusive language; language that unjustly or angrily vilifies.
   countable, uncountable
9. Catachresis.
   archaic, countable, uncountable
10. Catachresis
11. Physical maltreatment; injury; cruel treatment.
    countable, uncountable
12. Violation; defilement; rape; forcing of undesired sexual activity by one person on another, often on a repeated basis.
    countable, uncountable

Equivalents

Examples

“human rights abuses”

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

“Dickens was careful to castigate abuses which were being reformed.”

“Liberty may be endangered by the abuses of liberty, as well as by the abuses of power.”

“Few concepts are as emotionally charged as that of race. The word conjures up a mixture of associations—culture, ethnicity, genetics, subjugation, exclusion and persecution. But is the tragic history of efforts to define groups of people by race really a matter of the misuse of science, the abuse of a valid biological concept?”

“Or is it some abuse, and no such thing?”

“children hurling abuse at each other”

“The two parties, after exchanging a good deal of abuse, came to blows.”

“But he and all the southerners who indulge in this abuse in the newspapers should realize that this will not enable us to find a solution to our problem but will merely aggravate it.”

“The pair – aged 14 and 15 years old – have been accused of assaulting and shouting abuse at four people in central Southampton, police have said.”

CEFR level