(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.
Coercion
Definition:
(n.) The act or process of coercing.
(n.) The application to another of either physical or moral force. When the force is physical, and cannot be resisted, then the act produced by it is a nullity, so far as concerns the party coerced. When the force is moral, then the act, though voidable, is imputable to the party doing it, unless he be so paralyzed by terror as to act convulsively. At the same time coercion is not negatived by the fact of submission under force. "Coactus volui" (I consented under compulsion) is the condition of mind which, when there is volition forced by coercion, annuls the result of such coercion.
Example Sentences:
(1) It raises issues of informed consent, coercion, and trust in the physician patient relationship.
(2) The policies of zero tolerance equip local and federal law-enforcement with increasingly autocratic powers of coercion and surveillance (the right to invade anybody's privacy, bend the rules of evidence, search barns, stop motorists, inspect bank records, tap phones) and spread the stain of moral pestilence to ever larger numbers of people assumed to be infected with reefer madness – anarchists and cheap Chinese labour at the turn of the 20th century, known homosexuals and suspected communists in the 1920s, hippies and anti-Vietnam war protesters in the 1960s, nowadays young black men sentenced to long-term imprisonment for possession of a few grams of short-term disembodiment.
(3) A statement from al-Shabaab on Monday said the latest attack – the deadliest since Westgate – was revenge for the "Kenyan government's brutal oppression of Muslims in Kenya through coercion, intimidation and extrajudicial killings of Muslim scholars".
(4) Andrews contends that donors, recipients, and society can benefit from a market in body parts, provided that standards are instituted that require consent to all categories of research and that ensure that patients are protected from coercion and given the chance to be paid fairly for their contributions.
(5) No country should use supply and pricing terms as tools of coercion.
(6) As an extension of Patterson's family coercion model, we hypothesized that parental attributions about the causes of child misbehavior and parental expectancies concerning the effectiveness of parenting techniques are involved in the establishment and maintenance of coercive exchanges.
(7) The commission looked at abuse and coercion in the industry and found that, contrary to the opinion of Schaffauser and others, criminalising buyers does not lead women to pimps.
(8) 'It’s simply coercion': Manus Island, immigration policy and the men with no future Read more ‘Pacific Solution’ ends but the boats restart The detention camps housed more than 1,500 people.
(9) It would only apply to adults over 18 who were working without coercion, deceit or violence.
(10) Officers used the threat of arrest and illegal coercion to obtain concept to enter homes.
(11) Concerns that the Eritrean embassy in London is using coercion or illicit means to collect the tax – such as refusing diaspora members basic consular services if they fail to pay it – have led the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) to raise the matter with the Eritrean authorities on at least four occasions over the past four years.
(12) Participants in AIDS research may justify non-compliance with protocols by a "coercion defense."
(13) The law lords are very clear that their role is to clarify the law, not change it, and a change in the law is necessary to ensure that we can fully protect those who may be vulnerable to coercion as well as protect the fundamental right to autonomy at the end of life.
(14) Restrictions on campaigning by opposition candidates, censorship of the media, coercion of voters, ballot stuffing and non-transparent counting of votes are the most common examples of election irregularities in Belarus.
(15) I sense that my negotiating partners have recognised that coercion and pressure never lead to lasting solutions, but to more conflict and further hostility.” Zarif then pressed an increasingly important theme coming from Tehran – the possibility of joint action against Islamic State extremists in Syria and Iraq once the 13-year standoff over Iran’s nuclear aspirations is resolved.
(16) But Pakistan has a tremendous capacity to withstand coercion and a mindset that wants eternal confrontation with India that is too deeply entrenched,” he said.
(17) #voterid October 2, 2012 The exclamation point is needed, there, we'd note, because the Pennsylvania legislature this year passed a law denying voters their right to simply show up at the polls and cast their votes, secure in their own anonymity and freedom from coercion before or after their ballots were cast.
(18) X-rays taken for a clinically justified reason must not be used for another purpose without the patient’s informed consent, without coercion and in full knowledge of how the radiograph will be used and by whom.” Davies suggested other tests including a hand x-ray to test bone density.
(19) The fashion and the soft furnishings suggest the lovers share the same tastes, and what we are seeing is complicity rather than coercion.
(20) We respect the autonomy of someone to die when they're not terminally ill, when they're not suffering unbearably; we don't do a check for coercion.