(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.
Reproach
Definition:
(v. t.) To come back to, or come home to, as a matter of blame; to bring shame or disgrace upon; to disgrace.
(v. t.) To attribute blame to; to allege something disgraceful against; to charge with a fault; to censure severely or contemptuously; to upbraid.
(v.) The act of reproaching; censure mingled with contempt; contumelious or opprobrious language toward any person; abusive reflections; as, severe reproach.
(v.) A cause of blame or censure; shame; disgrace.
(v.) An object of blame, censure, scorn, or derision.
Example Sentences:
(1) "We lost to a great team and a great coach, but we want to win the league and we will be back – I have nothing to reproach my players for," he said.
(2) This examination leads to eliminate those reproaches because the consumer knows to which he is exposed, being forewarned: -when he is using mineral water at the cure-resort, by the thermal consultant who is watching over him, -when he is using one or the other of the conditioned waters, -either by the medical practictioner, who should give him the contre-indicates; -either by indicating on the label, if not the contre-indicates (like we would hope that they figure on), at least the composition (which now figures within the EEC).
(3) Hilary was one of few senior MPs whose expenses claims were totally beyond reproach – no surprise there.
(4) Prince Charles is being reproached again for having too many views on his future kingdom.
(5) The doctor tells it like it is, without reproach, but setting down the facts firmly.
(6) Each session deals with one of the following themes: "reproach & refusal", "request & emotions" and "relapse".
(7) First, normal psychological experience, with feelings of guilt, reproach, stability, indifference; deeper awareness is suppressed with the aid of forms of defense such as scientific objectivism, positivism, and reductionism.
(8) He told parliament on Tuesday that the public were sick of reproaches and insults.
(9) Along the way we invent creative ways to kill each other while trapped and make a pact that if one of us gets a flight out they are allowed to go without the other with no reproach and the other one will make friends with a volleyball.
(10) China is exercising the right of self-preservation that every country enjoys according to international law, which is beyond reproach,” foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying told reporters in Beijing.
(11) Just the fact of its being there at all took my breath away - a discordant modernist appendage to the gilded baroque former courthouse which is the entrance to the museum, and thus a symbolic reproach to bürgerlich Berlin itself.
(12) The MPs' report said today: "We conclude that Mr Andrew MacKay breached the rules relating to second home allowances by wrongly designating his home in Bromsgrove as his main home for ACA purposes and because his claims against ACA for his London home were not beyond reproach.
(13) The most striking observations were the relative paucity of depressed mood, self-reproach, and suicidal ideation in patients with major depression.
(14) The integrity of the commissioner of police must be beyond reproach.
(15) Mossack Fonseca has always insisted that it acts “beyond reproach” and that, in 40 years, it has “never been accused or charged in connection with criminal wrongdoing”.
(16) In cardiac surgery mainly new neurological deficits are content of malpractice reproach; in vascular surgery artery injuries and surgical procedures to correct varicose veins are most often involved.
(17) The prime minister, Bernard Cazeneuve, had earlier insisted MPs must be “beyond reproach” regarding their financial activities.
(18) Furthermore, we found out that the life events of the "patients grown up during the postwar period" were limited to the personal interests and that they rarely suffered from self-reproach or feeling of guilt.
(19) The public admission by the man who led France's fight against tax evasion that he secretly defrauded the taxman and was "caught in a spiral of lies" is a huge embarrassment for Hollande, who promised that his government would be beyond reproach after the corruption allegations that dogged previous French administrations.
(20) At the start of this month, the archbishop of Canterbury won near universal praise for his public reproach of the Zimbabwean president, Robert Mugabe, during a trip to Harare.