Vague vs Abuse - What's the difference?
vague | abuse |
Not clearly expressed; stated in indefinite terms.
*
*2004: , Character: Profiles in Presidential Courage
*:Throughout the first week of his presidency, Dulles and Bissell continued to brief Kennedy on their strategy for Cuba, but the men were vague and their meetings offered little in the way of hard facts.
Not having a precise meaning.
:
Not clearly defined, grasped, or understood; indistinct; slight.
:
Not clearly felt or sensed; somewhat subconscious.
:
Not thinking or expressing one’s thoughts clearly or precisely.
Lacking expression; vacant.
Not sharply outlined; hazy.
*{{quote-book, year=1922, author=(Michael Arlen), title=
, passage=He walked. To the corner of Hamilton Place and Picadilly, and there stayed for a while, for it is a romantic station by night. The vague and careless rain looked like threads of gossamer silver passing across the light of the arc-lamps.}}
Wandering; vagrant; vagabond.
*Sir (c.1564-1627)
*:to set upon the vague villains
*(John Keats) (1795-1821)
*:She danced along with vague , regardless eyes.
(obsolete) A wandering; a vagary.
An indefinite expanse.
* Lowell
To wander; to roam; to stray.
* Holland
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 vague and abuse
is that vague is while abuse is .vague
English
Adjective
(er)“Piracy”: A Romantic Chronicle of These Days, chapter=Ep./1/2
Synonyms
* obscure * ambiguousNoun
(en noun)- (Holinshed)
- The gray vague of unsympathizing sea.
Verb
(vagu)- [The soul] doth vague and wander.
External links
* * * ----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
