Diccionario ingles.comDiccionario ingles.com
Synonyms, antonyms, pronunciation

  Home
English Dictionary      examples: 'day', 'get rid of', 'New York Bay'



Abuse   /əbjˈus/  /əbjˈuz/   Listen
Abuse

noun
1.
Cruel or inhumane treatment.  Synonyms: ill-treatment, ill-usage, maltreatment.
2.
A rude expression intended to offend or hurt.  Synonyms: contumely, insult, revilement, vilification.  "They yelled insults at the visiting team"
3.
Improper or excessive use.  Synonym: misuse.  "The abuse of public funds"



Related searches:



WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








Advanced search
     Find words:
Starting with
Ending with
Containing
Matching a pattern  

Synonyms
Antonyms
Quotes
Words linked to  

only single words



Share |





"Abuse" Quotes from Famous Books



... or attorney of the middle class of modern society.... He was the agitator, the destroyer of prescription, the internal improver, the liberal, the radical, the inventor of means, the opener of doors and markets, the subverter of monopoly and abuse.... He had the virtues of the masses of his constituents: he had also their vices. I am sorry that the brilliant ...
— Essays • Ralph Waldo Emerson

... Jove did abuse Europa like a bull, and on his back Her through the sea did bear: ... She seemed still back unto the land to look, And her playfellows' aid to call, and fear The dashing of the waves, that up she took Her dainty feet, and ...
— Among My Books • James Russell Lowell

... constitutional power shall at any time here after decide to be for the general good will in that as in other respects deserve and receive the acquiescence and support of the whole country, and we have ample security that every abuse of power in that regard by agents of the people will receive a speedy and effectual corrective at their hands. The views which I take of the future, founded on the obvious and increasing improvement of all classes of our fellow citizens in intelligence and in public ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various

... was speedily made known to all the officers of the jail, and the Lodge was instantly crowded. The delight of the turnkeys was beyond all bounds; but poor Mrs. Spurling was in a state of distraction and began to abuse Jonathan so violently that her future husband was obliged to lay forcible hands upon her and ...
— Jack Sheppard - A Romance • William Harrison Ainsworth

... sacred name to any animal. And, agreeably to this custom of his countrymen, Omai used to express his indignation, that the English should give the names of prince or princess to their favourite horses or dogs. But while death is the punishment for making free with the name of their sovereign, if abuse be only levelled at his government, the offender escapes with the forfeiture ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 16 • Robert Kerr

... allow some elaborate beauties; you should have extracted 'em. "The Ancient Marinere" plays more tricks with the mind than that last poem, which is yet one of the finest written. But I am getting too dogmatical; and before I degenerate into abuse, I will conclude with assuring you ...
— The Best Letters of Charles Lamb • Charles Lamb

... been considered so absolutely important that he must have provided himself with either buds or cuttings in great quantities when he selected his animals for the Ark BEFORE the Deluge. If this is true, the use of wine must have been pre-historical, and its abuse historical; the two purposes having continued to the present day. It may therefore be acknowledged that no custom has been so universal and continuous as the drinking of wine from the earliest period of human existence. The vine is a mysterious plant; ...
— Cyprus, as I Saw it in 1879 • Sir Samuel W. Baker

... I said, "I don't see what good it does me, or what it makes up to me for, that you should abuse your daughter." ...
— Louisa Pallant • Henry James

... to pride himself more on his will than on his talent. Though Talent has its germ in a cultivated gift, Will means the incessant conquest of his instincts, of proclivities subdued and mortified, and difficulties of every kind heroically defeated. The abuse of smoking encouraged Lousteau's indolence. Tobacco, which can lull grief, inevitably numbs a ...
— The Muse of the Department • Honore de Balzac

... the quaint little beerhouse kept by Gammer Joy in Tarn Regis, and read again the doggerel her grandfather had painted on its sign-board, in which the traveller was advised of the various uses of liquor, taken in moderation, and the evil effects of its abuse. Taken wisely, I remember, it was suggested that liquor proved the best of lubricants for the wheels of life. Mrs. Joy looked just as old and just as active and rosy as she had always looked for so long as I could remember; and ...
— The Message • Alec John Dawson

... overpassed for command sit down and sketch the outline of a series of ten, twelve, or twenty- four leading articles on Seniority versus Selection; missionaries wish to know why they have not been permitted to escape from their regular vehicles of abuse, and swear at a brother missionary under special patronage of the editorial We. Stranded theatrical companies troop up to explain that they cannot pay for their advertisements, but on their return from New Zealand or Tahiti will do so with interest; inventors of patent punka-pulling machines, ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling

... Town of Superstition, in the County of Idolatry, and that thou hast, from time to time, abused the people of this Common-wealth, drawing and inticing them to Drunkenness, Gluttony, and unlawful Gaming, Wantonness, Uncleanness, Lasciviousness, Cursing, Swearing, abuse of the Creatures, some to one Vice, and some to another; all to Idleness: what sayest thou to thy Inditement, guilty or not guilty? He answered, Not guilty, and so ...
— A Righte Merrie Christmasse - The Story of Christ-Tide • John Ashton

... abuse leads to another. Those who are interested in the corn monopoly, or think themselves so, cannot well oppose the sugar monopoly while they require the aid of the West India planters to enable them to obtain this advantage at their country's expense; and so it is with all the ...
— The Economist - Volume 1, No. 3 • Various

... its traditions in the old traditional way: it was determined to change none of the rules which had stood for so many generations: it would maintain its liberties and put down in its own way those who had the impertinence to abuse them. The breaking-point came exactly at the ...
— John Redmond's Last Years • Stephen Gwynn

... thus raising the carbon content of the exterior of the piece. The article when quenched in an oil bath will have an extremely hard exterior and tough core. It is a good scheme for tools that must be hard and yet strong enough to stand abuse. Raw bone is never used as a packing for this class of work, as it makes the ...
— The Working of Steel - Annealing, Heat Treating and Hardening of Carbon and Alloy Steel • Fred H. Colvin

... unnatural that those who remembered Borrow as one of William Taylor's "harum-scarum" young men, who at one time intended to "abuse religion and get prosecuted," should find in his appointment as an agent of the British and Foreign Bible Society a subject for derisive mirth. Harriet Martineau's voice was heard well above the rest. "When ...
— The Life of George Borrow • Herbert Jenkins

... feasts, and poor folk be put away and rebuked; also in excess of divers meats and drinks, and namely [specially] such manner bake-meats and dish-meats burning of wild fire, and painted and castled with paper, and semblable [similar] waste, so that it is abuse to think. And eke in too great preciousness of vessel, [plate] and curiosity of minstrelsy, by which a man is stirred more to the delights of luxury, if so be that he set his heart the less upon our Lord Jesus Christ, certain it is a sin; and certainly the delights might ...
— The Canterbury Tales and Other Poems • Geoffrey Chaucer

... travel, and make himself generally presentable, having requested some simple means of making his toilet, was, after considerable delay, presented with water in a pint mug, and a soiled neckcloth as a towel. This was too much for the Austrian's proud stomach; a storm of abuse in the richest Viennese dialect was poured forth upon the landlady, her maid, and the whole establishment, which being liberally responded to, there resulted an uproar of foul language, such as was seldom heard, even in those regions. The hostess threatened ...
— A Tramp's Wallet - stored by an English goldsmith during his wanderings in Germany and France • William Duthie

... shall deserve most admiration." To quote Carter again: "It is entitled to be ranked with the finest buildings of the world," although he further goes on to say: "The exterior aspect is perhaps justly open to some criticism, but it has received unqualified abuse at the hands of some writers." Ruskin was very severe, comparing it to a billiard table, turned upside down, the four corner turrets being the four legs; but he afterwards, it is said, retracted. The late Rev. Augustus Austen Leigh, Provost ...
— A Short Account of King's College Chapel • Walter Poole Littlechild

... message from him, pleading sudden and alarming illness, devolved this duty upon another member of our party. Lord Dawton was in despair; the motion was lost by a great majority; the papers, the whole of that week, were filled with the most triumphant abuse and ridicule of the Whigs. Never was that unhappy and persecuted party reduced to so low an ebb: never did there seem a fainter probability of their coming into power. They appeared almost annihilated—a mere ...
— Pelham, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... after one remark more unjustifiable than ever, Nevil looked across at his father with a little rueful grimace, and seeing how grave was Mr. Aston's expression he made another valiant effort to keep peace and ignore the abuse, and went on reading. The subject under discussion was the draining of a piece of waste land, and when the long article came to an end, Nevil in his dreamy way summed up the matter by saying it was a very picturesque corner of the estate and a ...
— Christopher Hibbault, Roadmaker • Marguerite Bryant

... were, I should be thinking differently. It comes to me sometimes that I may be one of those intended only to prepare the way—that for me there may be only the endless struggle. I may have to face unpopularity, abuse, failure. ...
— All Roads Lead to Calvary • Jerome K. Jerome

... and let it write down those speaking thoughts that lie in your inventive brain. You know my old doctrine; it is a glorious thing to do good, and you can exert a happy and extensive influence upon society. I know you will not abuse the noble faculties given you by the ...
— Eventide - A Series of Tales and Poems • Effie Afton

... station-house blotters, unable to tear myself away. Once I even had the one from Church Street of October, 1870, in my hands; but I did not open it. Even as I held it I saw another and a better way. I would kill the abuse, not the man who was but the instrument and the victim of it. For never was parody upon Christian charity more corrupting to human mind and soul than the frightful abomination of the police lodging-house, sole provision made by the ...
— The Making of an American • Jacob A. Riis

... answer at once,—How comes it, if women are thus reverenced as you say, that men of the lower classes beat and ill-treat their wives in those countries? I must reply, for the same reason that Italian and Spanish sailors will beat and abuse the images of the saints and virgins to whom they pray, when their prayer is not granted. It is quite possible to worship an image sincerely and to seek vengeance upon it in a moment of anger. The one feeling does not exclude ...
— Books and Habits from the Lectures of Lafcadio Hearn • Lafcadio Hearn

... door and tried to prevent her, as well as to cut off the beads from her person, but she resisted like a good one, and my men thrust the door open and let her out, but minus her slave. The other wife—for old officious had two—joined her sister in a furious tirade of abuse, the elder holding her sides in regular fishwife fashion till I burst into a laugh, in which the younger wife joined. I explained to the different headmen in front of this village what I had done, and sent messages to Chirikaloma explanatory of my friendly deed to his relative, so that no ...
— The Last Journals of David Livingstone, in Central Africa, from 1865 to His Death, Volume I (of 2), 1866-1868 • David Livingstone

... Then I began to abuse him and reproach him with the foulness of his action and his lack of honour; and he was silent, never uttering a word. But, when I had finished, he smiled and said, 'Out on thee, O fool! Thou hast entered my house and sold ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton

... aft and, placing himself in a deckchair, gazed listlessly at the stolid figure of the helmsman. The heat was intense, and both Tredgold and Chalk had declined to proceed with a conversation limited almost entirely on his side to personal abuse. He tried the helmsman, and made that unfortunate thirsty for a week by discussing the rival merits of bitter ale in a pewter and stout in a china mug. The helmsman, a man of liberal ideas, said, ...
— Dialstone Lane, Complete • W.W. Jacobs

... his adieux, but returned before he had shut the door after him. "You couldn't send somebody with me, Miss Lawrie? I shall be afraid of that wooden-legged man in the stables, for fear he should get up and abuse me. He asked me to get him some gin,—which was quite unreasonable." But on being assured that he would find the groom about the place, he went out, and the trot of his horse was ...
— An Old Man's Love • Anthony Trollope

... unreasonable. A God who made the world as he chose, in such a way that it must wag as it does, and then comes and tells us that we must make it wag in a different way—well now, you know! He is certainly not a reasonable God! You have taken the liberty to empty out a whole bagful of abuse, a bagful of accusations against statesmen; they are calumnies, especially if you apply them to that gentleman over there, or to me; but I am willing to admit that politics are not a suitable business for saints. He who made the world did not intend that they should be! He is to blame for that. ...
— The Saint • Antonio Fogazzaro

... says the final 'No' to his passions as a man. The child who does not learn to respect his body in the act of brushing his teeth and taking his bath and exercise, and whose thought and speech and temper are unbridled by any self-restraint, will give little heed when told not to abuse his manhood by exposing himself to filth. The prevention of syphilis by sexual self-control goes down to the foundations of character, and has practical value only in those whose self-control is the expression of a lifelong habit of self-discipline bred in the bone from childhood, ...
— The Third Great Plague - A Discussion of Syphilis for Everyday People • John H. Stokes

... squires, it seems, knowing that the knights and nobles generally disliked Sir Miles, were encouraged to be very bold and insolent to him in expressing their ill-will, and when the archers came up they were following him with taunts, and ridicule, and abuse, while Sir Miles was making the best of his ...
— Richard II - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott

... procured him an excellent place as a coachman. But, wanting money, he sold his livery, and other things belonging to his master; who, having conceived a kind regard for him, considered his youth, and prevented the law from falling, with all its rigor, upon his head. Still he continued to abuse his privileges, and to involve himself in repeated difficulties, from which his mother as often extricated him. At each time, she talked much, and reasoned and remonstrated with him; and he would, with such perfect frankness, lay open his whole soul to her, ...
— The Narrative of Sojourner Truth • Sojourner Truth

... organization responsible for the presentation of a list to fix the order of candidates' names is not a necessary feature of the proportional system and it has been the object of much criticism, but it is not clear that serious abuse has arisen from it. Candidates whose names stand near the top of the list are, of course, more likely to be elected than those whose names appear further down, for, under the prevailing rules, all votes indicated ...
— The Governments of Europe • Frederic Austin Ogg

... the people ';{1} lawyers barking at each other in that peculiar style of dylactic delivery which is called forensic eloquence, and of which the first and most distinguished practitioner was Cerberus;{2} bear-garden meetings of mismanaged companies, in which directors and shareholders abuse each other in choice terms, not all to be found even in Rabelais; burstings of bank bubbles, which, like a touch of harlequin's wand, strip off their masks and dominoes from 'highly respectable' gentlemen, ...
— Gryll Grange • Thomas Love Peacock

... history and experience, rather than to try experiments, especially when these were advocated by men whose moral character or infidel sentiments excited his distrust or aversion. He did not shut his eyes to abuse, but aimed to mend deliberately and cautiously. His admonition to his country respecting America corresponded with his general sentiments. "Talk not of your abstract rights of government; I hate the very sound of them; follow experience and common sense." He believed that love ...
— A Modern History, From the Time of Luther to the Fall of Napoleon - For the Use of Schools and Colleges • John Lord

... Trotter had warned me that the midshipmen would abuse them, I paid very little attention to what he said. When he left me I went on the quarter-deck. All the sailors were busy at work, and the first lieutenant cried out to the gunner, "Now, Mr Dispart, if you are ...
— Peter Simple and The Three Cutters, Vol. 1-2 • Frederick Marryat

... gallant sailor's fondness for the wife of Sir William Hamilton was the last straw. There was nothing dignified in Lady Nelson's tornado farewell to her husband; rather, if the records may be relied on, it was accompanied by a flow of abuse which could only emanate from an ...
— Drake, Nelson and Napoleon • Walter Runciman

... sore against Saul, and the archers hit him; and he was sore wounded of the archers. Then said Saul unto his armourbearer, Draw thy sword, and thrust me through therewith; lest these uncircumcised come and thrust me through, and abuse me. But his armourbearer would not; for he was sore afraid. Therefore, Saul took a sword, and fell upon it. And when his armourbearer saw that Saul was dead, he fell likewise upon his ...
— The Dore Gallery of Bible Illustrations, Complete • Anonymous

... woman was transformed into a cursing and swearing virago. She followed him, making the little thoroughfare resound with her shrill abuse. Most people would, in such circumstances, have looked out for a policeman, or tried to get away somewhere, but this man turned round and stood still and regarded the woman. There was neither anger nor surprise nor scorn in his look, but a ...
— The Beautiful Wretch; The Pupil of Aurelius; and The Four Macnicols • William Black

... shouted, "Where am I?" to some harvesters, who, standing in a row, their forefingers pointed at him, shouted back, "Yeou're in a ballune, bor." There was old X., who, whenever my father visited him, would grumble, talk scandal, and abuse all his neighbours, always, however, winding up piously with "But 'tis well." There was the boy whom my father put in the stocks, but who escaped by unlacing his "high-lows," and so withdrawing his feet. There ...
— Two Suffolk Friends • Francis Hindes Groome

... of trust, where the trusteeship is to his benefit; or (2) where it is troublesome, wrongful imposition of trust. Both may similarly be offences against the beneficiary. As regards the exercise of the trust, we have negative breach of trust, positive breach of trust, abuse of trust, disturbance ...
— The World's Greatest Books—Volume 14—Philosophy and Economics • Various

... is not, I think, exactly what Shelley called it in the Preface to Adonais—'savage:' it is less savage than contemptuous, and is far indeed from competing with the abuse which was from time to time, and in various reviews, poured forth upon Shelley himself. It cannot be denied that some of the blemishes which it points out in Endymion are real blemishes, and very serious ones. The grounds ...
— Adonais • Shelley

... books of you, as a bribe to spur me on to obtain for you your extra-extraordinaries. Mr. Chute and I admire Caserta; and he at least is no villanous judge of architecture; some of our English travellers abuse it; but there are far from striking faults: the general idea seems borrowed from Inigo Jones's Whitehall, though without the glaring uglinesses, which I believe have been lent to Inigo; those plans, ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole Volume 3 • Horace Walpole

... Longfield, dryly. "The Yanks killed off too blame many o' that breed o' men fer us to begin to abuse one at this late day. Ef Westerfelt's harmed, it will be over my dead body, an' I bet I'm as hard ...
— Westerfelt • Will N. Harben

... consists in self-confidence. And because God bestows His grace on those who put no obstacle to it, the Church therefore calls the female sex "devout." Hence we are not to find fault with the learned for their knowledge, nor are we to praise women for womanly weakness; but that abuse of knowledge which consists in self-exaltation is blameworthy, just as the right use of women's weakness in not being uplifted is praiseworthy ...
— On Prayer and The Contemplative Life • St. Thomas Aquinas

... I had a quarrel with the American on politics. It is odd how it irritates you to hear certain political statements made. He was excited, and he began suddenly to abuse our conduct to America. I, of course, admitted right and left that we had behaved disgracefully (as we had); until somehow I got tired of turning alternate cheeks and getting duly buffeted; and when he said that the Alabama money had not wiped out the injury, I suggested, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 23 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... Loki all the more; and he spared not vile words, but heaped abuse without stint upon all the folk before him. By main force he seized hold of the silent Vidar, who had come from the forest solitudes to be present at the feast, and dragged him away from the table, and seated ...
— Hero Tales • James Baldwin

... long winter mornings now she would not spring up in the early darkness as formerly, but try to fall asleep again after waking, and put her arm across Stephen and tell him there was no use of getting up, that the day was long enough anyway, and it was too dark to do anything; and then she would abuse him if he insisted on getting up in spite of her, and let the breakfast wait so long, that after a time the men drifted into the habit of having it alone, and going out without seeing her. Katrine had grown to hate the day, to hate every minute ...
— A Girl of the Klondike • Victoria Cross

... him one day reading the latest abusive pamphlet. "These things are my diversion," said the poet, striving to put the best face on it; but as he read, his friends saw his features "writhen with anguish," and prayed to be delivered from all such "diversions" as these. Pope's enemies and their savage abuse are mostly forgotten to-day. Pope's furious retorts have been secured to immortality by his genius. It would have been nobler, no doubt, to have answered by silence only; but before one condemns Pope it is only fair to realize the causes of ...
— The Rape of the Lock and Other Poems • Alexander Pope

... would then produce his nazar or fee, formerly Rs. 25, but lately the double of this or more. The Janta would now begin a sort of chant, introducing the names of the families of the kuri other than that containing her who was to be proclaimed a witch, and heap on them all kinds of abuse. Finally, he would assume an ironic tone, extol the virtues of a certain family, become facetious, and praise its representative then present. This man would then question the Janta on all points regarding his own family, his connections, worldly goods, and what gods he worshipped, ask who ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume II • R. V. Russell

... that they have received the Lord's Supper. Yet they cannot recite the Lord's Prayer, the Creed, or the Ten Commandments; they live as if they were irrational creatures, and now that the Gospel has come to them, they grossly abuse their Christian liberty. ...
— An Explanation of Luther's Small Catechism • Joseph Stump

... withal. In a word, then, by glory and honour in this place, we are chiefly to understand the spiritual and heavenly things of this city, which, in the times of the reign of Antichrist, have lain, some among the potsherds of the earth, some again under the stairs, some under this abuse, and some under that (Psa 61:3; Cant 2:14). All which shall be brought by the souls that shall be converted, forthwith to this city, the church, where will be the treasury of God, into which every one at that day shall throw in of their abundance; but as for the glory of the world, ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... he was, Young seems to have felt that he had gone too far in his abuse of Judge Brocchus, and on September 19 he addressed a note to him, inviting him to attend a public meeting in the bowery the next Sunday morning, "to explain, satisfy, or apologize to the satisfaction of the ladies who heard your address on the 8th," a ...
— The Story of the Mormons: • William Alexander Linn

... tall and indifferent boy. She enjoys the society of her relations, and indulges as oft as may be in exhilarating misunderstandings with them. Without a vehement squabble now and again life would be intolerably insipid. Anger, accompanied by fluent abuse, is to her a kind of spiritual blood-letting for the casement of her suddenly plethoric temperament. But such is of her frailty. Proof of her strength of purpose, has it ...
— Tropic Days • E. J. Banfield

... shifted some production to neighboring countries; opium poppy cultivation has been reduced by eradication efforts; also a drug money-laundering center; minor role in amphetamine production for regional consumption; increasing indigenous abuse of methamphetamine ...
— The 2002 CIA World Factbook • US Government

... House he was, if possible, more arbitrary and domineering than ever, and especially seemed to single out for his spleen a big burly fellow, a half-French and half-Iroquois voyageur. This half-breed, who was making his first trip, stood all this abuse for time good-naturedly, and tried to do his best; but one day at one of the camping places, where Sir George had been unusually abusive and sarcastic, the big fellow turned on him and gave him one of the handsomest thrashings ...
— Three Boys in the Wild North Land • Egerton Ryerson Young

... in the name of his "counthry," vented bitter hatred against English rule; they spoke of rags, beggary, and pestilence. The little parlour was in an uproar; you would have thought a duel must follow such virulent abuse; it seemed a wonder that Mr. and Mrs. Gale did not take alarm at the noise, and send for a constable to keep the peace. But they were accustomed to such demonstrations; they well knew that the curates never dined or took tea together without a little exercise of the sort, and were quite ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte

... carried out, it might have saved the South. Loosely constructed and open to abuse, it was still the most potent engine the Government had used; and while it failed of its intent, it still for the first time caused the invader to be met by anything approaching the whole strength of ...
— Four Years in Rebel Capitals - An Inside View of Life in the Southern Confederacy from Birth to Death • T. C. DeLeon

... enough to recall the late Emperor's speech in regard to it, in which he declared that he would punish any officer who fought a duel, but would dismiss from the army any one who refused to do so. The first clause of this apparent paradox restrains the practice from becoming an abuse or a general evil; the second imposes it as a necessity in serious cases. The penalty consists in a longer or shorter period of arrest, fixed within certain limits, and in case of the death of one of the combatants ...
— Greifenstein • F. Marion Crawford

... is a valuable gift, but at the same time it is a gift that may be abused. What is regarded as polite conversation is, I hold, such an abuse. Alcohol, opium, tea, are all very excellent things in their way; but imagine continuous alcohol, an incessant opium, or to receive, ocean-like, a perennially flowing river of tea! That is my objection ...
— Certain Personal Matters • H. G. Wells

... appeared. After a few more mutterings he took his 'extry 'alf pint' into some more congenial society. But there were several others in the crowd who had come similarly fortified, and they were everywhere the most audible opponents. But above argument, denial, abuse, steadily in that upper air the clear voice ...
— The Convert • Elizabeth Robins

... end and use, so likewise the abuse of speech, relates to the one or other of these: either to business or to conversation. As to the former: deceit in the management of business and affairs does not properly belong to the subject now before us: though one may just mention that multitude, that heedless number of words with which ...
— Human Nature - and Other Sermons • Joseph Butler

... given settlers of one kind or another; and given a Viceroy with unlimited powers—could he or could he not govern the island? It was a by no means unfair way of putting the case, and there is little justice in the wild abuse that has been hurled at Ferdinand and Isabella on this ground. Columbus may have been the greatest genius in the world; very possibly they admitted it; but in the meanwhile Spain was resounding with the cries of the impoverished ...
— Christopher Columbus, Complete • Filson Young

... unnatural, "had begun to get angry at her first answer: this last put him quite in a fury; but all his anger fell on my Brother and me. He first threw a plate at my Brother's head, who ducked out of the way; he then let fly another at me, which I avoided in like manner. A hail-storm of abuse followed these first hostilities. He rose into a passion against the Queen; reproaching her with the bad training she gave her children; and, addressing my Brother: 'You have reason to curse your Mother,' said he, 'for it ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. VI. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle

... we may learn the mere conventionality and the utter arbitrariness of even our most important ethical terms. How prodigiously cheap is the application of any such epithets, considering the terrible abuse they have undergone! And how poor is that philosophy that can concentrate 'politeness' and 'civility' in the frippery and heartlessness of mere external city-forms; and convert the man who dwells in the woods or in the village into a savage or a villain! How fearful ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No IV, April 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... the sound's enough to crack me. What, is he gone? I an urinal! ha, ha, ha! I protest I might have had my face washed finely if he had meant to abuse me. I an urinal! ha, ha, ha! Go to, Urinal; you have 'scaped a fair scouring. Well, I'll away, and get me to mine own house; there I'll lock up myself fast, playing the chemic, Augmenting this one crown to troops of angels, With which gold-winged messengers I mean ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. IX • Various

... the Powers at once began to abuse Germany; but, if the blame for this disgraceful situation is to be properly bestowed, it will only be right for each of the Powers to take an equal share ...
— The Great Round World and What Is Going On In It, Vol. 1, No. 32, June 17, 1897 - A Weekly Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various

... time, Deare servant, till your powerfull voice revoke him, Be sure to use the policy he advis'd; Lest fury in your too quick knowledge taken Of our abuse, and your defence of me, 170 Accuse me more than any enemy. And, father, you must on my lord impose Your holiest charges, and the Churches power, To temper his hot spirit, and disperse The cruelty and the bloud I know his hand 175 Will showre upon our heads, if you put not Your finger to the storme, ...
— Bussy D'Ambois and The Revenge of Bussy D'Ambois • George Chapman

... into both kettle and lid there fell perhaps two or three teaspoonfuls of pure water, every drop of which I gave to the sufferer, whereupon he expressed thanks for another God-send, and at once apologized for bestowing unmerited abuse on me. He afterwards often asserted that he believed that the little rain-cloud was sent by God for his special benefit, and that the water caught from that cloud was the sweetest and best that he had ever tasted. I did not doubt the latter half of ...
— Death Valley in '49 • William Lewis Manly

... do it? No plan of recreation or out-of-door life which does not include the healthy association of men and woman can be a success. Young men and women need each other's society. And if you get the right kind they won't abuse their freedom." ...
— Applied Eugenics • Paul Popenoe and Roswell Hill Johnson

... Jack's passiveness, followed, with more abuse of the same sort. If he had been wiser, he would have seen a storm gathering in the flash of Jack's eye; but he mistook ...
— Jack's Ward • Horatio Alger, Jr.

... Self-abuse (Masturbation).—This is a cause of many of the diseases of women, also men. Small girls learn the practice from larger ones, and through ignorance continue it often to maturity without knowing that it is bringing upon them a physical and ...
— Treatise on the Diseases of Women • Lydia E. Pinkham

... chick of the egg abuse, hatched by the warmth of authority; he is a bird of rapine, and begins to prey and feather together. He croaks like a raven against the death of rich men, and so gets a legacy unbequeathed. His happiness ...
— Character Writings of the 17th Century • Various

... those interviews, which fill me with extreme joy, cannot often be repeated, and I must not abuse your goodness toward me by claiming your presence too often. The sacrifice which I make to your mental quietude is another proof of my intense desire to render you happy. This thought will comfort me while waiting to be able to embrace my adopted son. Do you not find this exchange ...
— The Empress Josephine • Louise Muhlbach

... to Despleins," he said. "He can save the woman by an operation. Ah! he will take good care of the case, for her abuse of liquor has developed a magnificent disease which was thought ...
— The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac

... me for what you have had?' 'What do you mean by my people?' said he, with an oath. 'Ah, what do you mean by calling us his people?' said the clan. 'We are nobody's people;' and then there was a pretty load of abuse, and threatening to serve me out. 'Well,' said I, 'I was perhaps wrong to call them your people, and beg your pardon and theirs. And now you will please to pay me for what you have had yourself, and afterwards I can settle with them.' 'I shall pay you when I think fit,' said Hunter. ...
— The Romany Rye • George Borrow

... applications, insulting flagellations, that man ever stood up and listened to. His evident motive was to provoke Boyle to some hostile act, so that twitching right arm might have the excuse for dealing out the death which lay at its finger-ends. Every little while the torrent of abuse broke upon the demand, "What do I owe you?" like a rock in the channel, and then rushed on again without laying hold of the same epithet twice. If a man were looking for a master in that branch of frontier learning, a great opportunity was ...
— Claim Number One • George W. (George Washington) Ogden

... thoughts in the best diction should furnish the models for youthful study and imitation; because such language is not only the most worthy to be remembered, but the most easy to be understood. A distinction is also to be made between use and abuse. In nonsense, absurdity, or falsehood, there can never be any grammatical authority; because, however language may be abused, the usage which gives law to speech, is still that usage which is founded upon the common sense ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown

... abuse, v. misapply, misuse, pervert, desecrate, violate, profane; maltreat, mistreat; revile, reproach, vilify, vituperate, ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming

... outdoor relief, whose evils I am tired of recapitulating,—our shameless abuse of the hospital system,—the crowding of our asylums by people in their dotage, kept there because there is no suitable place to send them to, and many of them sent by friends anxious only to be relieved of the duty of supporting and caring for them,—what ...
— The Fertility of the Unfit • William Allan Chapple

... "Is he not a lort? So help me Himmel, I never did vonce tink of looking at de shoes, which have been lying ever since in dis piece of brown paper." And then, gathering anger as he went on, he thundered out so much of his abuse of me, in his German-English, that the boys roared with laughter. Swishtail came in in the midst of the disturbance, and asked ...
— The Fatal Boots • William Makepeace Thackeray

... calm thought, you discern to be the right feeling with which to regard malice accompanied by falsehood. Then, is it well to be angry here? I think not. You may see that it is not safe to have any communication with a person who will abuse and misrepresent you; it is not safe, and it is not pleasant. But don't be angry. It is not worth while. That old lady, indeed, told all her friends that you said, in your book, something she knew quite well you did not say. Mr. Snarling did the like. But the offences of such people ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 7, No. 44, June, 1861 • Various

... altogether is of temporary service to man. So far, alcohol may be good, and if its use could be limited to this one action, this one purpose, it would be amongst the most excellent of the gifts of science to mankind. Unhappily, the border line between this use and the abuse of it, the temptation to extend beyond the use, the habit to apply the use when it is not wanted as readily as when it is wanted, overbalance, in the multitude of men, the temporary value that attaches ...
— The People's Common Sense Medical Adviser in Plain English • R. V. Pierce

... with an inward chuckle, for the loving abuse his boy had formed a habit of heaping on him never failed to thrill him. Instinctively Bryce had realized that to-night obvious sympathy copiously expressed was not the medicine for his father's bruised spirit; hence he elected to regard the latter's blindness as a ...
— The Valley of the Giants • Peter B. Kyne

... Austin was having his revenge on Aunt Charlotte for the torrent of abuse she had poured upon him a few minutes previously. For a short time she sat quite still, the picture of perplexity and irritation. The facts as Austin stated them were incontrovertible, and yet—probably because she ...
— Austin and His Friends • Frederic H. Balfour

... you are," Verkan Vall shouted back. Like most ancient languages, the Akor-Neb speech included an elaborate, delicately-shaded, and utterly vile vocabulary of abuse; Verkan Vall culled from it judiciously and at length. "And if I don't make myself understood verbally, we'll go down to the object level," he added, snatching a bowl of soup from in front of the monkish-looking young man and ...
— Last Enemy • Henry Beam Piper

... gipsy women and children came dragging in the rear; some in tears, others making a violent clamour about the ears of old Ready-Money, who, however, trudged on in silence with his prey, heeding their abuse as little as a hawk that has pounced upon a barn-door hero regards the outcries and cacklings of his whole ...
— Bracebridge Hall, or The Humorists • Washington Irving

... anecdote, which reads like truth, is ample set- off for a cart-load of abuse of women. But even the Hindu, determined misogynists in books, sometimes relent. Says the Katha Sarit Sagara: "So you see, King, honourable matrons are devoted to their husbands, and it is not the case that all women are always bad" (ii. 624). Let me hope that after all this ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 7 • Richard F. Burton

... was. Bill commenced to whistle when he remembered up to this part, and then he laughed to himself when he recollected a couple of old lady aunts who had offered to take him to bring up, because they were sure that Major Sherman, being a soldier and no doubt unused to boys, might abuse him! ...
— Battling the Clouds - or, For a Comrade's Honor • Captain Frank Cobb

... uninterrupted and severe exercise of the intellectual faculties, to the comparative neglect of their moral, and still more of their physical nature. Nay, not only do they neglect their physical nature—they ABUSE it; they sin against themselves and against God; and though they sin in ignorance, they do not escape the penalties of His violated laws. Hence you see them pale, and wan, and feeble; hence you find them acknowledging, when too late, the effects of severe application. But do they acknowledge it ...
— Popular Education - For the use of Parents and Teachers, and for Young Persons of Both Sexes • Ira Mayhew

... content with the maintenance of a Navy Department simply as a shabby ornament to the Government, a constant watchfulness may prevent some of the scandal and abuse which have found their way into our present organization, and its incurable waste may be reduced to the minimum. But if we desire to build ships for present usefulness instead of naval reminders of the days that are past, we must have a Department organized ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 3 (of 3) of Volume 8: Grover Cleveland, First Term. • Grover Cleveland

... Eheschiedungen, pp. 95 et seq.; Esmein, Marriage en Droit Canonique, vol. i, p. 6; Howard, History of Matrimonial Institutions, vol. ii, p. 15. Howard (in agreement with Lecky) considers that the freedom of divorce was only abused by a small section of the Roman population, and that such abuse, so far as it existed, was not the cause of any decline of ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 6 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis

... concern it is very necessary that we should have the most distinct ideas annexed to the terms we employ; because it is evident that an abuse of the term people has been the original, fundamental cause of those evils, the cure of which, by war and policy, is the present object of all the ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. IV. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... would be glad of the chance to stab their country to the heart. They knew that the average English found golf and cricket much more interesting than foreign affairs, so they were not quite prepared for that rush of men to the recruiting offices at the first call for volunteers! Englishmen may abuse their own country, but it is a different matter when the enemy is at the door. So they came,—the farmer, the clerk, the bank boy, the teacher, the student, the professional man, the writer, the crossing-sweeper, the cab-man,—high and low, rich and poor, ...
— Three Times and Out • Nellie L. McClung

... in his abuse of me, as if he had been very fortunate in all his former reproaches of me; but I will brand him with the most thoroughly deserved marks of infamy, and pillory him for the everlasting recollection of posterity. I a "master of the show of gladiators!" indeed he is not ...
— The Orations of Marcus Tullius Cicero, Volume 4 • Cicero

... that many workingmen receive is a disgrace to our civilization and an abuse that cries to heaven for vengeance, still it is absurd to hold that wages should be so much increased as to leave nothing for the capitalists. For, in the first place, if the workingmen should enjoy the entire profits of their firms or industries ...
— The Red Conspiracy • Joseph J. Mereto

... of a certain defeat for the county restored the earl to his original intention of giving a mild support to Hogarth, who certainly would be a better man than Fortescue. There was the usual amount of personal abuse levelled at the banker's clerk—neither his father nor his mother was spared—there were caricatures of him in mean lodgings and shabby raiment, doing things for himself, which he recollected doing, and which he was not ashamed ...
— Mr. Hogarth's Will • Catherine Helen Spence

... down the abuse, of which I am speaking, among the impediments to the Advancement of the Sciences, when he observes that "men have used to infect their meditations, opinions, and doctrines, with some conceits which they have most admired, ...
— The Idea of a University Defined and Illustrated: In Nine - Discourses Delivered to the Catholics of Dublin • John Henry Newman

... only beauties. But to call strength by the name of beauty, to have but one denomination for the qualities of a Venus and Hercules, so totally different in almost all respects, is surely a strange confusion of ideas, or abuse of words. The cause of this confusion, I imagine, proceeds from our frequently perceiving the parts of the human and other animal bodies to be at once very beautiful, and very well adapted to their purposes; and we are ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. I. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... hastened to take off her mother's big hat. Ma grumbled, under her breath: it was nothing but going out, now. Old Cinderella could stay at home, bareheaded, while my lady went shopping! A fine thing, my word, for a great sensible girl to abuse her Pa's weakness! There was nothing to do at home, of course! Well, if it pleased Mr. Clifton, she had no more to say!... And, while she grumbled, Ma prepared the tea and shot glances at Lily, a Lily with red cheeks and bright eyes and looking so pretty that Ma, full of mixed pride and anxiety, ...
— The Bill-Toppers • Andre Castaigne

... to be conceived that such another heroine will ever appear, unless in a novel, where a latitude is given to that extravagance of character which she attempted to bring into real life." Beloe, in the "Sexagenarian," borrowed the scurrilous abuse of the "Biographical Dictionary," which was furthermore accepted by almost every history of English literature and encyclopaedia as the correct estimate of Mary's character and teachings. It is, therefore, no wonder that the immorality of ...
— Mary Wollstonecraft • Elizabeth Robins Pennell

... replied Cleopatra, shaking her head. 'Ah! cunning, cunning man! One shouldn't tell these things; your sex, my dear Dombey, are so vain, and so apt to abuse our weakness; but you know my open soul—very ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens

... stick, with what Dashwood had muddled her into; and Miriam added in the complacency of her young expansion: "Oh give me fifty words any time and the ghost of a situation, and I'll set you up somebody. Besides, I mustn't abuse poor Yolande—she has saved us," ...
— The Tragic Muse • Henry James

... Edward I., his expedition against Wallace, killed at the battle of Stirling, Crusades, the, remarks upon, the first led by Peter the Hermit, its disastrous end, followed by Godfrey de Bouillon and others, account of, the third account of, the last history of, the great abuse of them, Curfew bell, origin of, Cymry, the, original tribe of the Kelts, Cyprus, conquest of, by Richard Coeur de Lion, Damietta, the crusaders at, Danish conquest of England, effects of, David, Earl of Huntingdon, joins the third crusade, his adventures on his return home, David I. King ...
— Cameos from English History, from Rollo to Edward II • Charlotte Mary Yonge

... pompously. It was more than once suggested to me to write an experimental paper upon the failure of republicanism; but I knew only one American—a New York correspondent—who lent himself to a systematic abuse of the Government which permitted him to reside in it. He obtained a newsboy's fame, and, I suspect, earned considerable. He is dead: let any who love him shorten ...
— Campaigns of a Non-Combatant, - and His Romaunt Abroad During the War • George Alfred Townsend

... there nothing but a fit excuse To sooth the Duke in his concern'd abuse; That he may be perswaded she is slaine, And we our wonted ...
— Old English Plays, Vol. I - A Collection of Old English Plays • Various

... snobbishness, and mean tuft-hunting so common, are due to the same desire to make use of people in some way or other. It is an abuse of the word friendship to apply it to such social scrambling. Of course, even tuft-hunting may be only a perverted desire after what we think the best, a longing to get near those we consider of nobler nature and ...
— Friendship • Hugh Black

... Congress, in the management of the public property, to make improvements essential to the successful execution of the trust; but this must be the primary object of any such improvement, and it would be an abuse of the trust to sacrifice the interest of the property ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 3 (of 4) of Volume 5: Franklin Pierce • James D. Richardson

... trimming and decoration, velvet has been popular for a greater period than the life of any living mortal, but never before has it been so cheap, so varied and so beautiful as it is now. One can in the passing throng of pedestrians on any crowded street see the use and abuse of this noble material. There is scarcely an article of dress into whose composition it does not enter and it is worn upon all occasions. Many things have brought about this result. The tendency of fashion is towards the decorative ...
— Textiles and Clothing • Kate Heintz Watson

... or with a "style," a sort of small stiletto with which they commonly wrote on tablets. The ancient world becomes very near when we read, side by side with the election notices, a line from Virgil or Ovid scrawled in a moment of idleness, or a piece of abuse of a neighbouring and rival town—such as "bad luck to the Nucerians"—or a pretty sentiment, such as "no one is a gentleman who has not been in love," or an advertisement to the effect that there are "To let, from July 1, shops with their upper floors, a flat for a gentleman, ...
— Life in the Roman World of Nero and St. Paul • T. G. Tucker



Words linked to "Abuse" :   assault, curse, kick around, ill-use, child neglect, exercise, revile, cruelty, pervert, rail, expend, assail, usage, habit, treat, slang, utilisation, step, snipe, do by, blackguard, round, vituperate, lash out, low blow, take in vain, inhuman treatment, employment, scurrility, persecution, vituperation, disrespect, cut, handle, stinger, mistreatment, abusive, ill-treat, billingsgate, utilization, attack, invective, ill-treatment, use, vitriol, misuse, vilify, discourtesy, contumely, fracture



Copyright © 2024 Diccionario ingles.com