- abuse
- abuse vb Abuse, misuse, mistreat, maltreat, ill-treat, outrage all denote to use or treat a person or thing improperly or wrongfully. Abuse and misuse are capable of wider use than the others, for they do not invariably imply either deliberateness or wantonness{
I can’t abuse your generosity to that extent. You’re doing more than enough for me already— Mackenzie
}{it turns a man’s stomach to hear the Scripture misused in that way— George Eliot
}Abuse, however, commonly suggests perversion of the ends for which something was intended{the constitution leaves them [the states] this right in the confidence that they will not abuse it— John Marshall
}Sometimes it implies excess in use that injures or impairs{abuse one’s strength
}Misuse, by contrast with abuse, emphasizes the actual mistreatment or misapplication rather than its results{the intent of this regulation is highly commendable, namely to keep the Indians from being misused— Hitchcock
}Mistreat, maltreat, and ill-treat usually imply a fault or an evil motive in the agent, such as meanness, culpable ignorance, or spitefulness{many more patients die from being mistreated for consumption than from consumption itself— Lytton
}{the meter, though a well-known English critic has maltreated it of late, is a very fine one— Saintsbury
}{have small compunction in ill-treating animals, because they have no souls— Repplier
}Outrage implies abuse so violent or extreme as to exceed all bounds{an act that outraged nature and produced the inevitable tragedy of the play— Auchincloss
}Analogous words: hurt, *injure, harm, damage, impair, mar, spoil: *wrong, persecute, oppress: pervert, corrupt, *debase, debauch, vitiateAntonyms: respect, honorContrasted words: esteem (see corresponding noun at REGARD): *revere, venerate, reverence: *commend, applaud, compliment: cherish, treasure, prize (see APPRECIATE)abuse n Abuse, vituperation, invective, obloquy, scurrility, billingsgate can all denote vehemently expressed condemnation or disapproval.Abuse, the most general term, implies the anger of the speaker and stresses the offensiveness of the language{the extended vocabulary of barrack-room abuse— Kipling
}{those thunderous comminations, that jeering and abuse which make Milton’s prose such lively reading— Huxley
}It may, however, imply hardly more than expression of personal disapproval or displeasure{a vague term of abuse for any style that is bad— T. S. Eliot
}Vituperation suggests the overwhelming of someone or something with a torrent of abuse{presidents were nagged beyond endurance, and senators, and congressmen: no one could escape the vials of her vituperation— Pattee
}Invective implies vehemence and bitterness in attack or denunciation and, often in distinction from abuse, connotes a command of language and skill in making one’s points. It is the precise term when the attack is public and made in a good cause{John Bull stopped at nothing in the way of insult; but its blazing audacity of invective never degenerated into dull abuse— Repplier
}Obloquy suggests defamation and consequent disgrace{those who . . . stood by me in the teeth of obloquy, taunt and open sneer— Wilde
}Scurrility stresses coarseness or indecency of language and emphasizes the quality of the abuse rather than the attack in itself{he was . . . interrupted in his defense by ribaldry and scurrility from the judgment seat— Macaulay
}Billingsgate stresses more strongly than any of the other words the offensiveness, often foul or obscene, of the language of an attack{the more I humbled myself the more he stormed . . . provoking me with scandalous names that I could not put up with; so that I . . . returned his billingsgate— Smollett
}Analogous words: aspersion, reflection, stricture, *animadversion: reviling, railing, rating, berating (see SCOLD vb): vilification, malignment (see corresponding verbs at MALIGN)Antonyms: adulation
New Dictionary of Synonyms. 2014.
