What is the difference between abuse and misuse?
abuse | misuse |
Improper treatment or usage; application to a wrong or bad purpose; an unjust, corrupt or wrongful practice or custom.
*
Misuse; improper use; perversion.
* 1788 , , Number 63
* {{quote-magazine, year=2012, month=March-April
, author=(Jan Sapp)
, title=Race Finished
, volume=100, issue=2, page=164
, magazine=(American Scientist)
(obsolete) A delusion; an imposture; misrepresentation; deception.
*
Coarse, insulting speech; abusive language; language that unjustly or angrily vilifies.
*
(now, rare) Catachresis.
Physical maltreatment; injury; cruel treatment.
Violation; defilement; rape; forcing of undesired sexual activity by one person on another, often on a repeated basis.
To put to a wrong use; to misapply; to use improperly; to misuse; to use for a wrong purpose or end; to pervert; as, to abuse one's authority.
*
To injure; to maltreat; to hurt; to treat with cruelty, especially repeatedly.
*
To attack with coarse language; to insult; to revile; malign; to speak in an offensive manner to or about someone; to disparage.
* Macaulay
*
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.
(archaic) To violate; defile; to rape.
(obsolete) Misrepresent; adulterate.
*
(obsolete) To deceive; to trick; to impose on; misuse the confidence of.
* 1651-2 , , "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
(transitive, obsolete, Scotland) Disuse.
An incorrect, improper or unlawful use of something.
* {{quote-news
, year=2012
, date=June 4
, author=Lewis Smith
, title=Queen's English Society says enuf is enough, innit?
, work=the Guardian
To use (something) incorrectly.
To abuse or mistreat (something or someone).
(obsolete) To abuse verbally, to insult.
*, II.3.7:
In transitive terms the difference between abuse and misuse
is that abuse is 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 while misuse is to abuse or mistreat (something or someone).abuse
English
Etymology 1
From (etyl) abusen, then from either (etyl)Noun
(en noun)- All abuse , whether physical, verbal, psychological or sexual, is bad.
- Liberty may be endangered by the abuses' of liberty, as well as by the ' abuses of power.
citation, passage=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?}}
Usage notes
* Typically followed by the word of .Synonyms
* invective, contumely, reproach, scurrility, insult, opprobriumDerived terms
* abusefully * abuse of distress * alcohol abuse * child abuse * drug abuse * self-abuseVerb
(abus)- The tellers of news abused the general.
- (Spenser)
- 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
Synonyms
* maltreat, injure, revile, reproach, vilify, vituperate, asperse, traduce, malign * See alsoDerived terms
* abusable * abusage * abuserAnagrams
* English heteronyms ----misuse
English
Etymology 1
(mis-) +Noun
(en noun)citation, page= , passage=The Queen may be celebrating her jubilee but the Queen's English Society, which has railed against the misuse and deterioration of the English language, is to fold.}}
Etymology 2
From (mis-) +Verb
(misus)- Socrates was brought upon the stage by Aristophanes, and misused to his face: but he laughed, as if it concerned him not […].