1 [U,sing.] ~ (of sth) the use of sth in a way that is wrong or harmful:
alcohol / drug / solvent abuse * He was arrested on charges of corruption and abuse of power. * The system of paying cash bonuses is open to abuse (= might be used in the wrong way). * What she did was an abuse of her position as manager.
2 [U,pl.] unfair, cruel or violent treatment of sb:
child abuse * sexual abuse * reported abuses by the secret police * She suffered years of physical abuse.
3 [U] rude and offensive remarks, usually made when sb is very angry:
to scream / hurl / shout abuse * a stream / torrent of abuse * The man burst into a torrent of foul-mouthed racist abuse.
verb [VN]
1 to make bad use of sth, or to use so much of sth that it harms your health:
to abuse alcohol / drugs * He systematically abused his body with heroin and cocaine.
2 to use power or knowledge unfairly or wrongly:
She abused her position as principal by giving jobs to her friends. * He felt they had abused his trust by talking about him to the press (= deceived him, although he had trusted them).
3 to treat a person or an animal in a cruel or violent way, especially sexually:
All the children had been physically and emotionally abused. * He had abused his own daughter (= had sex with her). * The boy had been viciously assaulted and sexually abused.
4 to make rude or offensive remarks to or about sb:
Journalists covering the case have been threatened and abused.
abuser noun:
a drug abuser * a child abuser
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About this entry
This is a English–English dictionary entry.
Sourced from Main Dictionary in Lughet's collection.
This word also appears under other sources in Lughet's collection — see the list below.
This entry for abuse is sourced from Main Dictionary, one of the dictionaries and corpora merged into Lughet.
Is abuse a noun, verb, or something else?
In this entry, abuse is tagged as noun.
Does abuse appear elsewhere on Lughet?
Yes — abuse appears under other sources or language pairs in Lughet's collection. See the list below.
What is Lughet?
Lughet is a free trilingual dictionary covering nearly five million entries across Uyghur, Chinese, and English, drawn from more than ten source dictionaries and corpora.
