(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.
Discretionary
Definition:
() Left to discretion; unrestrained except by discretion or judgment; as, an ambassador with discretionary powers.
Example Sentences:
(1) There is no evidence that health-maintenance organizations reduce admissions in discretionary or "unnecessary" categories; instead, the data suggest lower admission rates across the board.
(2) A way must be found to experiment with various discretionary approaches that would strike a realistic balance among competing interests.
(3) "It was always our intention that foster carers and armed forces personnel would be covered by discretionary housing payments (DHPs) and therefore not affected.
(4) A mistake was introduced in the editing process to suggest Lall had applied for for a discretionary payment from Westminster council but had been turned down.
(5) Howard Archer of IHS Global Insight said: "While the further pick-up in UK car sales in October was clearly driven primarily by the scrappage scheme and a desire to beat January's VAT hike, it may also be a sign that a significant number of consumers have greater scope and willingness to step up their discretionary spending.
(6) This study examines the contextual and ideological dimensions of attitudes toward discretionary abortion using two national surveys.
(7) Many of these will in fact be dealt with via a discretionary fund.
(8) Recent research has found that the multiplier for discretionary fiscal policy – the change in output caused by a change in discretionary government spending – is larger when nominal interest rates are low and there is a significant amount of under-utilised resources.
(9) But the employers can achieve the basic legal minimum wage for the state only by including in the calculation statutory benefits such as maternity pay and sickness benefit, and discretionary items such as free tea.
(10) Councils can make discretionary housing payments (DHPs) to those tenants who are at risk of falling behind in rent and getting into debt as a result of the change.
(11) Oversight staff in 23 of the 30 states with legislation regulating continuing care retirement communities (CCRCs) completed a questionnaire surveying features of implementation experience such as problems encountered with the scope of regulation, the appropriateness of oversight placement, the adequacy of staff and financial resources, the use of discretionary agency authority, and attitudes toward various changes in applicable state law.
(12) Every time I thought about my own gold-plated life as a journalist - the taxis, the Guardian's car, my mobile phone, eating out, or the gifts for my family and what's called "discretionary spending" on pleasing non-necessities - it seemed undoable.
(13) It found a typical family was left with £171 a week of discretionary income once taxes and essentials bills had been paid, up from £167 last year.
(14) Since most hospital programs are not discretionary, they cannot be successfully evaluated by the "decision package" methodology of ZBPD.
(15) Financial workers at Wall Street's top banks are to receive pay deals worth more than $70bn (£40bn), a substantial proportion of which is expected to be paid in discretionary bonuses, for their work so far this year - despite plunging the global financial system into its worst crisis since the 1929 stock market crash, the Guardian has learned.
(16) "The Department for Work and Pensions' continued claim that discretionary housing payments [DHP] will protect all of the most vulnerable is simply not true.
(17) A variety of exemptions, discretionary funds and variable rates are being debated , but at the core of the debate is whether or not the principles behind the policy are the right ones for a modern democracy.
(18) Alternatively, might it not suggest that quite apart from banal, administrative, bureaucratic "filtering" – routine chucking out cases sent by applicants many years after a final domestic disposal, or without any domestic proceedings having been undertaken – the court is already making extensive use of highly discretionary concepts such as "manifestly ill-founded" to pre-judge the interest of its caseload, and is already selecting cases which it regards as "serious" or "important"?
(19) Although ministers have introduced a £165m discretionary housing fund for London councils in 2013-14 to help families who can make a special case for staying, the CPAG report says this is inadequate and amounts to less than 10% of the shortfall in benefit income caused by changes.
(20) Successive governments have multiplied the number of acts that can be deemed criminal or misdemeanours, constructing a regime of unaccountable discretionary decisions that blight people’s lives.