(v. t.) To put to a wrong use; to misapply; to misuse; to put to a bad use; to use for a wrong purpose or end; to pervert; as, to abuse inherited gold; to make an excessive use of; as, to abuse one's authority.
(v. t.) To use ill; to maltreat; to act injuriously to; to punish or to tax excessively; to hurt; as, to abuse prisoners, to abuse one's powers, one's patience.
(v. t.) To revile; to reproach coarsely; to disparage.
(v. t.) To dishonor.
(v. t.) To violate; to ravish.
(v. t.) To deceive; to impose on.
(v. t.) Improper treatment or use; application to a wrong or bad purpose; misuse; as, an abuse of our natural powers; an abuse of civil rights, or of privileges or advantages; an abuse of language.
(v. t.) Physical ill treatment; injury.
(v. t.) A corrupt practice or custom; offense; crime; fault; as, the abuses in the civil service.
(v. t.) Violation; rape; as, abuse of a female child.
Example Sentences:
(1) Unfortunately, due to confidentiality clauses that have been imposed on us by the Department of Immigration and Border Protection, we are unable to provide our full names and … titles … However, we believe the evidence that will be submitted will validate the statements that we are making in this submission.” The submission detailed specific allegations – including names and dates – of sexual abuse of child detainees, violence and bullying of children, suicide attempts by children and medical neglect.
(2) The authors empirically studied the self-medication hypothesis of drug abuse by examining drug effects and motivation for drug use in 494 hospitalized drug abusers.
(3) Alcohol abuse remains the predominant cause of chronic liver disease in the Western world.
(4) With respect to family environment, a history of sexual abuse was associated with perceptions that families of origin had less cohesion, more conflict, less emphasis on moral-religious matters, less emphasis on achievement, and less of an orientation towards intellectual, cultural, and recreational pursuits.
(5) An official inquiry into the Rotherham abuse scandal blamed failings by Rotherham council and South Yorkshire police.
(6) Former detectives had dug out damning evidence of abuse, as well as testimony from officers recommending prosecution, sources said.
(7) After these two experimental years, a governmental institute for prevention of child abuse and neglect was organized.
(8) Stringer, a Vietnam war veteran who was knighted in 1999, is already inside the corporation, if only for a few months, after he was appointed as one of its non-executive directors to toughen up the BBC's governance following a string of scandals, from the Jimmy Savile abuse to multimillion-pound executive payoffs.
(9) History contains numerous examples of government secrecy breeding abuse.
(10) This preliminary study compared the level of ego development, as measured by Loevinger's Washington University Sentence Completion Test (SCT), of 30 women with histories of childhood sexual victimization, and 30 women with no history of abuse.
(11) The District became a byword for crime and drug abuse, while its “mayor for life” lived high on the hog and lurched cheerfully from one scandal to the next.
(12) An official from Cafcass, the children and family court advisory service, tried to persuade the child in several interviews, but eventually the official told the court that further persuasion was inappropriate and essentially abusive.
(13) A series of hierarchical multiple regressions revealed the effects of Surgency, Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, Emotional Stability, and Intellect on evoking upset in spouses through condescension (e.g., treating spouse as stupid or inferior), possessiveness (demanding too much time and attention), abuse (slapping spouse), unfaithfulness (having sex with others), inconsiderateness (leaving toilet seat up), moodiness (crying a lot), alcohol abuse (drinking too much alcohol), emotional constriction (hiding emotions to act tough), and self-centeredness (acting selfishly).
(14) Its abuse has become concentrated among post-high school age, black males in a limited number of cities, especially Washington, DC.
(15) From a clinical standpoint, it is clear that psychiatrists caring for anxious patients must be aware of the possibility of secondary alcohol abuse.
(16) A thorough nursing assessment is essential to detect and correct drug misuse and to diagnose drug abuse.
(17) Substantial percentages of both physicians and medical students reported access to drugs, family histories of substance abuse, stress at work and home, emotional problems, and sensation seeking.
(18) Subjects with past history of chronic substance abuse, neurologic disease, or focal findings on MRI or CT were excluded.
(19) And any Labour commitment on spending is fatally undermined by their deficit amnesia.” Davey widened the attack on the Tories, following a public row this week between Clegg and Theresa May over the “snooper’s charter”, by accusing his cabinet colleague Eric Pickles of coming close to abusing his powers by blocking new onshore developments against the wishes of some local councils.
(20) Again, the boys in care that he abused now speak to us as broken adults.
Amuse
Definition:
(v.) To occupy or engage the attention of; to lose in deep thought; to absorb; also, to distract; to bewilder.
(v.) To entertain or occupy in a pleasant manner; to stir with pleasing or mirthful emotions; to divert.
(v.) To keep in expectation; to beguile; to delude.
(v. i.) To muse; to mediate.
Example Sentences:
(1) It was amusing: he's still working away and this picture of him is hanging in a gallery somewhere.
(2) Joaquin Rodriguez Oliver is amusing himself by trying to take a puff of a cigar in his saddle.
(3) Students have been amused by the amount of public response to this action.
(4) But she is determined to reassert her authority and appears not to have been amused by the remark.
(5) In La Shish, the beloved local halal restaurant where Wanda Beydoun has worked a minimum wage managing job for 16 years, these stereotypes are a source of amusement.
(6) In a tent for those recovering, a talkative man wearing a heavy gold chain played up to amused doctors during the lunch break.
(7) Israeli media reports said the rocket came down near an amusement park in sand dunes on the edge of the city.
(8) He tells an amusing story of how exhilarated, if stunned, he was by completing three skeleton runs at Lillehammer.
(9) Tech entrepreneurs will keep expanding into increasingly diverse niches, so it will be amusing to try and pick out the most obscure market being disrupted in 2014.
(10) King notes with some amusement that he has been around so long that kids who read and loved him in the 1970s now run publishing houses and newspapers; he is revered, these days, as a grand old man of American letters.
(11) She added that the superstore would have pulled business from the local high street and brought big lorries and heavy traffic to the site which sits next to Dreamland, Margate’s derelict amusement park which is being revived.
(12) But my amusement should be a problem for movement conservatism.
(13) Facebook Twitter Pinterest We are most amused … The Windsors, starring Harry Enfield and Hadyn Gwynne, centre.
(14) In Brussels, the reaction was more bemusement than amusement.
(15) It’s something that has always baffled and amused me about my grandmother.
(16) It amuses me that he calls his new material "songs" when they are so unsingable.
(17) The joke, the uncontainable amusement, the gleeful satisfaction, was that most rational people had thought that he was too disabled to walk 26 miles, that he was too sick.
(18) The tribunal ruled: "The comment having been made, other people in the room, including other supervisors, laughing and finding it amusing, was inevitably conduct that any gay police officer would reasonably consider … degrading."
(19) "The part in the film is small, I thought it would be amusing.
(20) Now tell us this, Robbie, when you collected your MBE from the queen, did you exchange amusing chitchat with the woman who most of us only ever encounter on stamps?