From Middle English abusen, then from either Old French abus (“improper use”), or from Latin abūsus (“misused, using up”), perfect active participle of abūtor (“make improper use of, consume, abuse”), from ab (“away”) + ūtor (“to use”).^[1] Equivalent to ab- +‎ use.

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /əˈbjuːs/
• (General American) enPR: əbyo͞os', IPA^(key): /əˈbjus/

  • Audio (General American):

    (file)

• (Scotland, Northern Ireland) IPA^(key): /əˈbjʉs/
• Hyphenation: ab‧use
• Rhymes: -uːs

abuse (countable and uncountable, plural abuses)

1. Improper treatment or usage; application to a wrong or bad purpose; an unjust, corrupt or wrongful practice or custom. [from around 1350 to 1470]

   Synonym: abusage

   Coordinate terms: usage, misusage, misuse, use

   human rights abuses

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

   • 1948, W. R. Inge, The End of an Age and Other Essays:

     Dickens was careful to castigate abuses which were being reformed.

2. Misuse; improper use; perversion. [from mid-16th c.]
   • 1788, James Madison, Federalist, Number 63:

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

   • 2012 March-April, Jan Sapp, “Race Finished”, in American Scientist‎^[1], volume 100, number 2, archived from the original on 5 September 2015, page 164:

     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?

   • 2026 March 18, Philip Haigh, “Tickets please: 2p per scan to offset fraudulent refunds?”, in RAIL, number 1057, page 48:

     RDG explains: "From April 1 2026, the following tickets, Anytime, Off-Peak, Day Travelcards and most Ranger and Rover tickets, will no longer be refundable on the day they become valid for travel." It calls the £40m it thinks it loses "refund abuse", which it explains as "refunds on tickets that have been used but not scanned or endorsed, where a customer falsely states that they did not travel". I'm sure such abuse takes place (and that it's done by passengers). But RDG is taking a sledgehammer to crack a nut and punishing many millions of honest passengers by making tickets more restrictive.

3. (obsolete) A delusion; an imposture; misrepresentation; deception. [mid-16th–mid-17th c.]
   • 1601, William Shakespeare, Hamlet, act IV, scene VII:

     Or is it some abuse, and no such thing?

4. Coarse, insulting speech; abusive language; language that unjustly or angrily vilifies. [from mid-16th c.]

   Synonyms: invective, contumely, reproach, scurrility, insult, opprobrium

   children hurling abuse at each other

   • 1861, Thomas Babington Macaulay, The history of England: from the accession of James the Second, volume 9, page 153:

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

   • 1950 February 11, Alhaji Na-Alhaji, Gaskiya Fa Ti Kwabo:

     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.

   • 2020, “Coronavirus: Teenage girls arrested after 'abusing Chinese people wearing face masks in racially-motivated attack'”, in The Independent:

     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. (now rare) Catachresis. [from late 16th c.]

   Synonym: abusio

6. Physical maltreatment; injury; cruel treatment. [from late 16th c.]
7. Violation; defilement; rape; forcing of undesired sexual activity by one person on another, often on a repeated basis. [from late 16th c.]

• (misuse, perversion): Typically followed by the word of.

From Middle English abusen, from Middle French abuser, from Latin abūsus (“misused, using up”), perfect active participle of abūtor (“to use up, misuse, consume”), from ab (“from, away from”) + ūtor (“to use”).^[2][1]

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /əˈbjuːz/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /əˈbjuz/, enPR: əbyo͞oz'

• Audio (US):

  (file)

• Hyphenation: abuse
• Rhymes: -uːz

abuse (third-person singular simple present abuses, present participle abusing, simple past and past participle abused)

1. (transitive) To put to a wrong use; to misapply; to use improperly; to use for a wrong purpose or end; to pervert [from around 1350 to 1470.]

   Coordinate terms: misuse, use

   He abused his authority.

   • 1856, James Anthony Froude, History of England from the fall of Wolsey to the defeat of the Spanish Armada, volume 1, published 1870, page 353:

     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. [from mid-16th c.]

   Synonyms: maltreat, injure; see also Thesaurus:harm, Thesaurus:do evil

   • 1883, Richard F[rancis] Burton, transl. and editor, Karma Sutra:

     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.

   • a. 1990, R. S. Thomas, At It:

     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.

   • 2020 February 6, Alicia Lee, “Netflix is finally letting you stop previews from automatically playing. Here’s how to do it”, in CNN Business‎^[2], archived from the original on 20 December 2025:

     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. [from early 17th c.]

   Synonyms: misuse, vitriol, vituperate; see also Thesaurus:offend, Thesaurus:revile

   • 1849–1861, Thomas Babington Macaulay, chapter XIV, in The History of England from the Accession of James the Second, volume (please specify |volume=I to V), London: Longman, Brown, Green, and Longmans, →OCLC:

     The […] tellers of news abused the general.

   • 1904, W. B. Yeats, The King's Threshold:

     But ever and always curse him and abuse him.

   • 1991, Yakubu Yahaya, quoted in: 2001, Toyin Falola, Violence in Nigeria: The Crisis of Religious Politics and Secular Ideologies, p. 199:

     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^[sic] Mohammed and Jesus.

   • 2020, “'Our team are here to help, not hurt': Woolworths urge customers not to abuse staff”, in Nine News‎^[3]:

     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. [from mid-20th c.]
5. (transitive, archaic) To violate; defile; to rape; (reflexive) to masturbate. [from around 1350 to 1470]

   Synonyms: outrage, ravish; self-abuse, touch oneself; see also Thesaurus:rape, Thesaurus:masturbate

   • 1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book II, Canto VII”, in The Faerie Queene.[…], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC, stanza 16, page 276:

     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

   • 1722, Onania; or, The Heinous Sin of Self-Pollution‎^[4], 6th edition, London, retrieved 28 February 2022, page 26:

     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.

   • 2003, Thomas W. Laqueur, Solitary Sex: A Cultural History of Masturbation‎^[5], New York: Zone Books, →ISBN, retrieved 28 February 2022, page 14:

     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. (transitive, obsolete) Misrepresent; adulterate. [from ca. 1350—1470 to mid-18th c.]
   • 1749, Henry Fielding, The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling:

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

7. (transitive, obsolete) To deceive; to trick; to impose on; misuse the confidence of. [from late 15th–early 19th c.]

   Synonyms: con, hustle; see also Thesaurus:deceive

   • 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. (transitive, obsolete, Scotland) Disuse. [from late 15th c.–mid 16th c.]

• Guyanese Creole English: buse

• Lesley Brown, editor-in-chief, William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, editors (2002), “abuse”, in The Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles, 5th edition, Oxford; New York, N.Y.: Oxford University Press, →ISBN, page 10.

• aubes, beaus

• Audio (France (Lyon)):

  (file)

abuse

1. inflection of abuser:
   1. first/third-person singular present indicative/subjunctive
   2. second-person singular imperative

• aubes

• (Classical Latin) IPA^(key): [aˈbuː.sɛ]
• (modern Italianate Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): [aˈbuː.s̬e]

abūse

1. vocative masculine singular of abūsus

abuse

1. inflection of abusar:
   1. first/third-person singular present subjunctive
   2. third-person singular imperative

• IPA^(key): /aˈbuse/ [aˈβ̞u.se]
• Rhymes: -use
• Syllabification: a‧bu‧se

abuse

1. inflection of abusar:
   1. first/third-person singular present subjunctive
   2. third-person singular imperative

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