Accuse vs Abuse - What's the difference?
accuse | abuse |
To find fault with, to blame, to censure.
* (rfdate) (Epistle to the Romans) 2:15,
* (rfdate) ,
To charge with having committed a crime or offence.
* (rfdate) (Acts of the Apostles) 24:13,
To make an accusation against someone.
* {{quote-magazine, date=2013-06-08, volume=407, issue=8839, page=55, magazine=(The Economist)
, title= 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.
As verbs the difference between accuse and abuse
is that accuse is while abuse is .accuse
English
(Webster 1913)Verb
(accus)- Their thoughts the meanwhile accusing or else excusing one another.
- We are accused of having persuaded Austria and Sardinia to lay down their arms.
- Neither can they prove the things whereof they now accuse me.
Obama goes troll-hunting, passage=According to this saga of intellectual-property misanthropy, these creatures [patent trolls] roam the business world, buying up patents and then using them to demand extravagant payouts from companies they accuse of infringing them. Often, their victims pay up rather than face the costs of a legal battle.}}
Usage notes
* (legal) When used this way accused is followed by the word of . * Synonym notes: To accuse , charge, impeach, arraign: these words agree in bringing home to a person the imputation of wrongdoing. ** To accuse'' is a somewhat formal act, and is applied usually (though not exclusively) to crimes; as, to ''accuse of treason. ** Charge'' is the most generic. It may refer to a crime, a dereliction of duty, a fault, etc.; more commonly it refers to moral delinquencies; as, to ''charge with dishonesty or falsehood. ** To arraign'' is to bring (a person) before a tribunal for trial; as, to ''arraign one before a court or at the bar public opinion. ** To impeach'' is officially to charge with misbehavior in office; as, to ''impeach a minister of high crimes. ** Both impeach'' and ''arraign convey the idea of peculiar dignity or impressiveness.Synonyms
* (legal) charge, indict, impeach, arraign * () blame, censure, reproach, criminateExternal links
* * * English reporting verbs ----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