Loading page
say it: uh-BYOOS
abuse is a verb and noun meaning "treat badly". It carries 7 recorded senses.
change the inherent purpose or function of something
“Don't abuse the system”
“The director of the factory misused the funds intended for the health care of his workers”
use foul or abusive language towards
“The actress abused the policeman who gave her a parking ticket”
“The angry mother shouted at the teacher”
use wrongly or improperly or excessively
“Her husband often abuses alcohol”
“while she was pregnant, she abused drugs”
a rude expression intended to offend or hurt
“when a student made a stupid mistake he spared them no abuse”
“they yelled insults at the visiting team”
improper or excessive use
“alcohol abuse”
“the abuse of public funds”
Forms marked · are formed by the regular rule rather than recorded in the source data. English keeps a few hundred irregulars and the rest follow the pattern, so the rule is right far more often than not — but it is a rule, and the mark says so.
Definitions, synonyms and semantic relations for abuse come from Princeton University’s WordNet. The pronunciation comes from the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary. Commonness is measured against a corpus of everyday English. Full sources and licences.