(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.
Revile
Definition:
(v. t. & i.) To address or abuse with opprobrious and contemptuous language; to reproach.
(n.) Reproach; reviling.
Example Sentences:
(1) Though no doubt he reviles Goldsmith’s racism, he doesn’t detest it quite enough to lend a hand to oust him.
(2) Thank God, then, for The Execution Of Gary Glitter (Mon, 9pm, Channel 4), which vividly envisions the trial and subsequent capital punishment of pop's most reviled sex offender so you don't have to.
(3) read one banner, against the woman whose family is reviled for taking tasty slices of state business and contracts, and plundering Tunisia's wealth.
(4) In any case, the Brits are a notoriously lily-livered shower when it comes to workplace politics, too craven to strike – [note to non-British readers: we're a sorry servile bunch, we don't like it up us] - and as a result, poor John's failed coup has led to him becoming the most reviled union leader in British history, ahead of the excellent Bob Crow, the much misunderstood Arthur Scargill, and Gary Neville.
(5) A conservative, lower-middle-class district bordering the Golden Horn and predominantly inhabited by Turks from the Black Sea coast, Kasimpasa loves Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the powerful prime minister increasingly reviled across Turkey and tarnished internationally.
(6) No one has reviled us like this since [president James] Polk in 1846” – author of the Mexican-American war – “has reviled us like this,” tweeted historian and public intellectual Enrique Krauze .
(7) Andrew Hodkingson, Steve Revill and Ben Avison are founder members of RISC OS Open Ltd and have worked with ARM technology back to its 26-bit days in Acorn Computers Ltd during the 1990s
(8) Baby boomers are now reviled because we seem to have shaped society to suit ourselves: free university education (my student debt, owed to a frugal friend, was £120 when I left); on the property ladder at just the right time (first house in Wimbledon, bought in 1982, cost £31,000); and never had to worry about internships (I’d never even heard of them when I was a student) or jobs.
(9) Fantastic Four director Josh Trank has distanced himself from the critically reviled superhero epic by claiming the existence of a separate personal cut which audiences will probably never see.
(10) Maybe it’s a coincidence that she was a member of a political class that has been reviled for years and with heightened fervour in recent weeks.
(11) They have been reviled as vandals, hooligans and lunatics.
(12) The levy is intended to raise an additional £13m from the much reviled payday loans industry, and will be seen as another attempt by the Labour leader, Ed Miliband , to take the side of the consumer against "profiteering capitalism".
(13) When it comes to President Bashar al-Assad , Syria’s reviled strongman, Barack Obama says nothing has changed.
(14) Bahrainis often complain that the riot police and special forces do not speak the local dialect, or in the case of Baluchis from Pakistan, do not speak Arabic at all and are reviled as mercenaries.
(15) Emerging to the strains of Eminem’s Lose Yourself, a nod to his reputation as an animated speaker, Ballmer spent much of his speech promising fans that the Clippers would move on from the tumultuous reign of widely reviled former owner Donald Sterling.
(16) Politicians are almost universally reviled and government invariably mistrusted.
(17) It would earn him enemies on the left and the right, make him reviled and nearly send him to jail.
(18) That’s why supposedly whorephobic feminists are so reviled.
(19) The attacks on Homs and Damascus targeted areas dominated by Muslim minorities reviled by the Sunni radicals of Isis.
(20) Its foes, meanwhile, revile the UKFC as a classic example of state bureaucracy – an all-powerful quango that presumes to tell businesses what films they can and cannot make.