abuse

noun

1. (countable, uncountable)Improper treatment or usage; application to a wrong or bad purpose; an unjust, corrupt or wrongful practice or custom.

   “human rights abuses”

   “All abuse, whether physical, verbal, psychological or sexual, is bad.”

   “Dickens was careful to castigate abuses which were being reformed.”

2. (countable, uncountable)Misuse; improper use; perversion.

   “Liberty may be endangered by the abuses of liberty, as well as by the abuses of power.”

   “Few concepts are as emotionally charged as that of race. The word conjures up a mixture of associations—culture, ethnicity, genetics, subjugation, exclusion and persecution. But is the tragic history of efforts to define groups of people by race really a matter of the misuse of science, the abuse of a valid biological concept?”

3. (countable, obsolete, uncountable)A delusion; an imposture; misrepresentation; deception.

   “Or is it some abuse, and no such thing?”

4. (countable, uncountable)Coarse, insulting speech; abusive language; language that unjustly or angrily vilifies.

   “children hurling abuse at each other”

   “The two parties, after exchanging a good deal of abuse, came to blows.”

   “But he and all the southerners who indulge in this abuse in the newspapers should realize that this will not enable us to find a solution to our problem but will merely aggravate it.”

   “The pair – aged 14 and 15 years old – have been accused of assaulting and shouting abuse at four people in central Southampton, police have said.”

5. (archaic, countable, uncountable)Catachresis.
6. (countable, uncountable)Physical maltreatment; injury; cruel treatment.
7. (countable, uncountable)Violation; defilement; rape; forcing of undesired sexual activity by one person on another, often on a repeated basis.

verb

1. (transitive)To put to a wrong use; to misapply; to use improperly; to use for a wrong purpose or end; to pervert

   “He abused his authority.”

   “This principle (if we may so abuse the word) shot rapidly into popularity”

2. (transitive)To injure; to maltreat; to hurt; to treat with cruelty, especially repeatedly.

   “Blows with the fist should be given on the back of the woman, which she is sitting on the lap of the man, and she should give blows in return, abusing the man as if she were angry, and making the cooing and the weeping sounds.”

   “And I would have things to say to this God at the judgement, storming at him, as Job stormed with the eloquence of the abused heart.”

   “The trailer for the documentary about killer Luka Magnotta doesn’t show anything graphic, but it contains clips of him handling kittens. The trailer goes on to explain that Magnotta gruesomely abuses these kittens.”

3. (transitive)To attack with coarse language; to insult; to revile; malign; to speak in an offensive manner to or about someone; to disparage.

   “The […] tellers of news abused the general.”

   “But ever and always curse him and abuse him.”

   “So we were angered by this and we could not tolerate this one because prophet Mohammed has been abused so many times in this country. Awolowo abused him sometimes ago saying that he was more successful and popular that Mohammed and Jesus.”

   “However, shortages have seen customers yelling at employees, and abusing staff members as they work frantically to keep up with demand.”

4. (transitive)To imbibe a drug for a purpose other than it was intended; to intentionally take more of a drug than was prescribed for recreational reasons; to take illegal drugs habitually.
5. (archaic, transitive)To violate; defile; to rape; (reflexive) to masturbate.

   “Like Angels life was then mens happy cace; But later ages pride, like corn-fed ſteed, Abuſd her plenty, and fat ſwolne encreace To all licentious luſt, and gan exceed”

   “This the Holy Scripture teaches, as expreſly as may be; Neither Fornicators, ſays St. Paul, nor Adulterers, nor the Abominable, ſhall inherit the Kingdom of God; cautioning alſo at the ſame time, that we don’t abuſe our ſelves, nor flatter our ſelves in this Reſpect.”

   “Through “wantonness,” or just by being “idle and alone,” or by the instruction of intimates, the young learn to abuse themselves without learning how wrong and dangerous it is.”

6. (obsolete, transitive)Misrepresent; adulterate.

   “Believe me, sir, he hath been abused, grossly abused to you.”

7. (obsolete, transitive)To deceive; to trick; to impose on; misuse the confidence of.

   “1651-2, Jeremy Taylor, "Sermon VI, The House of Feasting; or, The Epicures Measures", in The works of Jeremy Taylor, Volume 1, page 283 (1831), edited by Thomas Smart Hughes When Cyrus had espied Astyages and his fellows coming drunk from a banquet loaden with variety of follies and filthiness, their legs failing them, their eyes red and staring, cozened with a moist cloud and abused by a double object”

8. (Scotland, obsolete, transitive)Disuse.