Abuse

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Dr. Goodword
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Abuse

Postby Dr. Goodword » Tue Mar 21, 2023 6:53 pm

• abuse •


Pronunciation: ê-byuz (verb), ê-byus (noun) • Hear it!

Part of Speech: Verb

Meaning: 1. To misuse, pervert, degrade, as 'abuse a position'. 2. To mistreat, maltreat, treat cruelly, victimize; molest, as 'abuse a child' 3. To vilify, revile as 'abuse someone for his/her abuse of power'. 4. To use excessively, as 'abuse drugs'.

Notes: Today we have a verb whose action noun is formed in an unusual way: the voicing is removed from the final vowel, so that [ê-byuz] becomes ê-byus (see Pronunciation above). The adjective is then based on the noun: abusive [ê-byu-siv]. It has a synonym, abuseful. We also have active and passive personal nouns, abuser and abusee, at our disposal.

In Play: Most often today's word is used in the sense of "mistreatment": "We abuse the Earth because we see it as a commodity belonging to our species only." We hear it in the sense of verbal abuse, but here it is in an expression referring to both this sense and its most common usage: "Politicians who abuse their position are most often abused."

Word History: Today's Good Word was snatched from Old French abuser "deceive, misuse" which French created from Latin abusus "misused, used up", the past participle of abutor "to use up, misuse". This verb is made up of ab "(away) from" + utor "to use". Ab is the Latin version of PIE apo "from, out, of", which also produced Sanskrit apa "off, away, back", Greek aps "back, again", German auf "up, on", English of and off, Welsh o "of, from", Russian po "by, according to", and Serbian po "by, as per, on". How utor and usus came to be in Latin remains a mystery, but the roots us- and ut- appear in all Romance languages and those borrowing from Latin, like English: use and utilize. We find usar and utilizar in Portuguese and Spanish, user "wear" and utilizer "use" in French, and usare and utilizzare in Italian.
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Slava
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Re: Abuse

Postby Slava » Thu Mar 21, 2024 10:02 am

Abuse of position or power can also be excessive, as in definition 4. I remember a tale of long ago, but still in my lifetime, when a new city police office was nicknamed 'Arresto' (a play on his real last name), because in his first month on the job he issued more tickets and citations than the rest of the force combined. Took him a while to grasp that having a hammer doesn't make everything a nail.
Life is like playing chess with chessmen who each have thoughts and feelings and motives of their own.


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