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What is "abusive"

Crossword clues for abusive

abusive
Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
abusive
adjective
COLLOCATIONS FROM CORPUS
■ NOUN
husband
▪ An arranged marriage of eighteen years came to an end when her abusive husband was murdered in a brawl.
▪ It came from a seminary friend who hand recently divorced her abusive husband.
▪ After divorcing her abusive husband, she remarried.
▪ Lawhone and his wife, Mary, befriended the woman and helped her escape from an abusive husband.
language
▪ The matter of sexually abusive language in texts is in some senses a separate issue.
▪ If he spoke, he would vent the most wicked and abusive language he had ever imagined, much less expressed.
▪ As Sue Lees shows, the way pupils use sexually abusive language to insult each other in schools presents particular problems for teachers.
▪ A neighbour's child had been breaking my constituent's windows, hurling abusive language and stealing property at will.
relationship
▪ She left an abusive relationship and departed the only community she had known.
▪ She then spent several years in and out of an abusive relationship with this man.
EXAMPLES FROM OTHER ENTRIES
▪ Drunken football fans began directing a stream of abusive language at the policemen.
▪ Robin left home at 16 to get away from abusive parents.
▪ Smith was fined £500 for making foul and abusive comments to match officials.
▪ The way pupils use sexually abusive language to insult each other presents particular problems for teachers.
▪ The woman became angry and abusive when she was not allowed into the hotel.
▪ Vince used abusive language to her and other staff members.
EXAMPLES FROM CORPUS
▪ After several unwarranted and unreasonably abusive attacks in the press, Riva Palacio resigned on August 10, 1848.
▪ Agency staffers want the Commission to seek a Federal court injunction barring Microsoft from what they consider abusive practices.
▪ An arranged marriage of eighteen years came to an end when her abusive husband was murdered in a brawl.
▪ President Clinton grew up in an abusive home.
▪ She has been in an abusive marriage; he has been incarcerated for six years.
▪ The legal rights of children are emphasized, as are the prosecution and punishment of negligent or abusive parents.
▪ The matter of sexually abusive language in texts is in some senses a separate issue.
▪ They called each other abusive names, which might have been alarming if I had not heard it all before.
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Abusive

Abusive \A*bu"sive\, a. [Cf. F. abusif, fr. L. abusivus.]

  1. Wrongly used; perverted; misapplied.

    I am . . . necessitated to use the word Parliament improperly, according to the abusive acceptation thereof.
    --Fuller.

  2. Given to misusing; also, full of abuses. [Archaic] ``The abusive prerogatives of his see.''
    --Hallam.

  3. Practicing abuse; prone to ill treat by coarse, insulting words or by other ill usage; as, an abusive author; an abusive fellow.

  4. Containing abuse, or serving as the instrument of abuse; vituperative; reproachful; scurrilous. ``An abusive lampoon.''
    --Johnson.

  5. Tending to deceive; fraudulent; cheating. [Obs.] ``An abusive treaty.''
    --Bacon.

    Syn: Reproachful; scurrilous; opprobrious; insolent; insulting; injurious; offensive; reviling.

Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
abusive

1530s (implied in abusively), originally "improper," from Middle French abusif, from Latin abusivus, from abus-, past participle stem of abuti (see abuse (v.)). Meaning "full of abuse" is from 1580s. Abuseful was used 17c., and Shakespeare has abusious ("Taming of the Shrew," 1594). Related: Abusiveness.

Wiktionary
abusive

a. 1 wrongly used; perverted; misapplied; unjust; illegal. (First attested in the mid 16th century.)(R:SOED5: page=10) 2 (context archaic English) catachrestic. (First attested in the mid 16th century.) 3 (context archaic English) Full of abuses; practicing abuse; containing abuse, or serving as the instrument of abuse. (First attested in the late 16th century.) 4 Prone to ill treat by coarse, insulting words or by other ill usage; vituperative; reproachful; scurrilous. (First attested in the early 17th century.) 5 (context obsolete English) Tending to deceive; fraudulent. (Attested only from the early to mid 17th century.) 6 (context archaic English) Given to misusing; also, full of abuses. 7 (context obsolete English) Given to misusing. (Attested only in the mid 17th century.) 8 Being physically injurious; characterized by repeated violence.

WordNet
abusive

  1. adj. expressing offensive reproach [syn: insulting, opprobrious, scornful, scurrilous]

  2. characterized by physical or psychological maltreatment; "abusive punishment"; "argued...that foster homes are abusive"

Usage examples of "abusive".

Not long afterwards, they repeated the experiment, this time by persuading their mother and father to watch the episodes of the television serial Brookside which dealt with a sexually abusive father who was buried under the patio.

Rosemary West, too, was the daughter of a dominant and abusive father, a man whose actions she also idealised.

For your willing ear and prospectus of what you might teach us, we will make sure, on your eight-hour shift, that we take all drunks, accidents, gunshots, and abusive hookers away from the House of God and across town to the E.

You get older daughters trying to protect younger siblings by doing anything they can to keep the abusive father focused on them.

The experience of hearing other women relive abusive experiences gave this patient acute anxiety attacks.

A one-on-one relationship with a therapist can mirror the primary abusive relationship.

If your mother was abused by her father, she may well have married a sexually abusive man.

The advocate of equal rights is preoccupied by these opportunities for the abusive exercise of power, because from his point of view rights exercised in the interest of inequality have ceased to be righteous.

Social Democrats have for the most part been treated by the authorities with repressive laws and abusive epithets.

What would happen if she finally confessed to him that Bill had been an abusive husband?

With a young child and an abusive boyfriend, she had used up all the reserves of hope that she had stored up for emergencies and hard times.

I had a feeling that I had passed through this abusive cult for a reason.

Nothing had prepared her for parenthood by herself, and even more tragic, nothing had prepared her for the abusive relationship inherent in being married to an alcoholic.

I remembered all along that my father had been abusive, only I did not consistently remember.

From her own experience, she has become aware that there are many women like herself who leave the Family and fall into similarly controlling and abusive situations, which tend to perpetuate the experiences that they had while in the cult.