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Abuse   /əbjˈus/  /əbjˈuz/   Listen
Abuse

verb
(past & past part. abused; pres. part. abusing)
1.
Treat badly.  Synonyms: ill-treat, ill-use, maltreat, mistreat, step.  "She is always stepping on others to get ahead"
2.
Change the inherent purpose or function of something.  Synonyms: misuse, pervert.  "The director of the factory misused the funds intended for the health care of his workers"
3.
Use foul or abusive language towards.  Synonyms: blackguard, clapperclaw, shout.  "The angry mother shouted at the teacher"
4.
Use wrongly or improperly or excessively.  "While she was pregnant, she abused drugs"



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"Abuse" Quotes from Famous Books



... Huntly was the less duped by the apparent pretext of this expedition, in that his son, John Cordon, for some abuse of his powers, had just been condemned to a temporary imprisonment. He, notwithstanding, made every possible submission to the queen, sending messengers in advance to invite-her to rest in his castle; and following up the messengers in ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - MARY STUART—1587 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE

... of the signs, one of the mysteries of the times. The ridicule and abuse of the press, the opposition and enmity of his childhood friends, had developed the man of force she now beheld, and who came forward ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... the heads of those who perished at their hands on the doors of their houses, as a proof of their deeds; for he who hung up the greatest number, in the sight of his other countrymen was most esteemed and applauded. It was an abuse of obligation that, a father or mother having died, the son who inherited should retire from the village into the mountains and forests until he had despoiled at least two persons of the common light—even though it should be, as one can well judge, ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume XXI, 1624 • Various

... till you've washed; then rise up without laughing or joking, and go to your lord's table. Stand there till grace is said. Then some of you go for water, some hold the towel, some pour water over his hands. Other things I shall not put in this little Report, but skip over, praying that no one will abuse me for this work. Let readers add or take away: I address it to every one who likes to correct it. Sweet children, I beseech you know this book, and may God make you so expert therein that you may ...
— Early English Meals and Manners • Various

... questionable, and has been as often questioned, as the power of Congress to create a bank; and, enlightened by what has passed under our own observation, we now see that it is of all powers the most capable of flagrant abuse. Now, Sir, I ask again, What becomes of this power, if the authority of precedent be taken away? It has all along been denied to exist; it is nowhere found in the Constitution; and its recent exercise, or, to call things by their right names, its recent abuse, has, more than any other single ...
— The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster • Daniel Webster

... had heard the night before, on the other side of Merthyr Tydvil. The cry of the owl afar off in the woodlands. Oh that strange bird! Oh that strange cry! The Welsh, as I have said on a former occasion, call the owl Dylluan. Amongst the cowydds of Ab Gwilym there is one to the dylluan. It is full of abuse against the bird, with whom the poet is very angry for having with its cry frightened Morfydd back, who was coming to the wood to keep an assignation with him, but not a little of this abuse is wonderfully expressive ...
— Wild Wales - Its People, Language and Scenery • George Borrow

... end of the year 1500, to the former nurse of Don Juan, an account of the treatment he has received. "If my complaint of the world is new, its method of abuse is very old," he says. "God has made me a messenger of the new heaven and the new earth which is spoken of in the Apocalypse by the mouth of St. John, after having been spoken of by Isaiah, and he showed ...
— The Life of Christopher Columbus from his own Letters and Journals • Edward Everett Hale

... one of the stories. It's named Lovely Lulu, or the Doctor's Darling. Lovely Lulu is a little orphant who has to do most of the housework for a family of eight, and the way they abuse that child is something awful. The young ladies are forever puttin' ruffled white skirts into her wash, and makin' her darn the lace on their blue silk ...
— Flower of the Dusk • Myrtle Reed

... St. Petersburg after the delivery of his temperate and dispassionate address in New York, the handful of "true Russians" in the third Duma attacked him with violent and insulting abuse, and Mr. Vladimir Purishkevich, one of their most influential leaders, said to him in open session: "You are a poltroon and traitor, in whose face I would willingly spit!" Such is the spirit of the "true Russians" whom the Czar has asked to help him in bringing about ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. 31, No. 1, May 1908 • Various

... daughter. Every one speaks highly of his skill in the stable; but for this robbery we might have kept him for the rest of his life still, if the girl had ever taken it into her head to leave us and to take him with her, we could not have detained him.—You may say what you will, and abuse me and mock me; I have none of what you call imagination; I see things simply as they are: but there must be some understanding between that girl and ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... when the days were lengthening quickly and London was beginning to show its better side to the cross-grained people who abuse its climate, the gas was lighted again in the dingy rooms in Hare Court. No one but the old woman who came to sweep had visited them since Mr. Van Torp had gone into the country in March, after Lady Maud had been to see him on ...
— The Primadonna • F. Marion Crawford

... king, influenced by his wife, Isobel, and his brother, the Duke of Orleans, who were on terms of the closest alliance, placed the entire government in the hands of the latter, who at once began to abuse it to such an extent, by imposing enormous taxes upon the clergy and the people, that he paved the way for the return of his uncle of Burgundy to power. On the 27th of April, 1404, Philip the Bold of Burgundy died. He was undoubtedly ambitious, but he was also valiant and able, and he had the good ...
— At Agincourt • G. A. Henty

... confess I sympathize with this poor girl. Those I don't like are some whom I remember to have lacked softness of heart, to have been sour and ungenerous; these, for instance," indicating certain pictures. "But it is hardly fair," she added, laughing, "for us two to get together and abuse the rest of the family, who, no doubt, if they were present, would have something to say for themselves, and some criticisms to offer on us—that is, on me. None of them would criticize you. You were the darling and pride of ...
— Miss Ludington's Sister • Edward Bellamy

... their claims. There was little noise. The slowly-moving streams of shoppers or amusement seekers gave out no sudden shouting. A deep murmur filled the air, but no angry curse was heard, no whooping. In a land where the revolver is readier than the fist men are wary of quarrel, careful of abuse, and studiously regardful ...
— The Eagle's Heart • Hamlin Garland

... and good nature of Oubacha; finally (which is remarkable enough, as illustrating the character of the man), by that very new modelling of the Sarga, or Privy Council, which he had used as a principal topic of abuse and malicious insinuation 10 against the Russian Government, whilst, in reality, he first had suggested the alteration to the Empress, and he chiefly appropriated the political advantages which it was fitted to yield. For, as he was himself appointed the chief of ...
— De Quincey's Revolt of the Tartars • Thomas De Quincey

... become a permanent liability to society. It is true that in the country the home is at its best (see chapter II), but it is also unfortunately true that some of the most shameful and almost unbelievable cases of neglect and abuse of children are frequently found in out-of-the-way places in rural communities. Where compulsory school attendance laws are strictly enforced such cases may come to the attention of school officials, but in many instances no one seems ...
— The Farmer and His Community • Dwight Sanderson

... use it as he thinks fit. He addresses prayers to it and extols its virtues; but should his enterprise not prosper, he will cast his deity aside as useless, and cease to worship it; he will address it with torrents of abuse, and will even beat it, to make it serve him better. It is a deity at his disposal, to serve in the accomplishment of his desires; the individual keeps gods of his own to ...
— History of Religion - A Sketch of Primitive Religious Beliefs and Practices, and of the Origin and Character of the Great Systems • Allan Menzies

... standing dispute between Toby and his master. Toby was a kind-hearted lad, and hated to see the horses over-worked, ill-fed, and badly used. He was always remonstrating with his master about it, and thereby bringing down upon himself his master's wrath and abuse. Augustus cared nothing for the comfort or welfare of those under him. To get as much work as possible out of them, and to make as much gain by them as he could, was all he thought of. They might be tired, or hungry, or overburdened; what did it matter to him, so long as the end ...
— A Peep Behind the Scenes • Mrs. O. F. Walton

... the kitchen one Saturday night reading the Scriptures, when she was somewhat startled by hearing at the door the tap and voice of her sweetheart. Not expecting him, and the hour being somewhat late, she opened it in astonishment, and was still more astonished to hear him on entering abuse Scripture-reading. He behaved altogether in an unprecedented manner, and in many ways terrified the poor girl. Ultimately he knelt before her, and laid his head on her lap. You can fancy her consternation when glancing down she discovered that, instead of hair, the head was covered with the ...
— Dreamthorp - A Book of Essays Written in the Country • Alexander Smith

... became very wealthy and powerful. Then it was that it began to abuse its power, working often against the best interests of the inhabitants of the Pacific slope. In some cases, as in the eviction of the people who were settlers in the Mussel Slough District, it was guilty of extreme cruelty and injustice, such as is almost certain to bring its own punishment. ...
— History of California • Helen Elliott Bandini

... strength of a twice vanquished race, and abase the arms of Latinus before it. Now the princes of the Myrmidons tremble before Phrygian arms, now Tydeus' son and Achilles of Larissa, and Aufidus river recoils from the Adriatic wave. Or when the scheming villain [407-443]pretends to shrink at my abuse, and sharpens calumny by terror! never shall this hand—keep quiet!—rob thee of such a soul; with thee let it abide, and dwell in that breast of thine. Now I return to thee, my lord, and thy weighty resolves. If thou dost ...
— The Aeneid of Virgil • Virgil

... of fourteen, is under the control of Rudolph Rugg, a thorough rascal. After much abuse Tony runs away and gets a job as stable boy in a country hotel. Tony is heir to a large estate. Rudolph for a consideration hunts up Tony and throws him down a deep well. Of course Tony escapes from the fate provided for him, and by ...
— Adrift in New York - Tom and Florence Braving the World • Horatio Alger

... hurtled like hail round his ears, with acid laughter, and bitter sneers at his own tremendous awakening. Stung to the quick, the lame wheelwright, Charles Coomstock, gloated on the spectacle of Clement's dark hour, and heaped abuse upon his round-eyed, miserable mother. The raw of his own wound found a sort of salve in this attack; and all the other poor, coarse creatures similarly found comfort in their disappointment from a sight of more terrific mortification than their own. Venomous ...
— Children of the Mist • Eden Phillpotts

... This was an abuse that took a long time to die out. Even well on in the nineteenth century, and sometimes even on board of steamers, victualling was only by the lunar month though service went ...
— Elizabethan Sea Dogs • William Wood

... him an' the boss's Rose. The captain begins to abuse Drislane somethin' fierce, an' he comes back at him. Then the captain brings her into it. 'What would a girl be wantin' with a little runt like you?' he says; and after that, 'I dunno but I'll take her to Boston with me this trip,' and said it like he meant it. An' the little Drislane he jumps into ...
— Sonnie-Boy's People • James B. Connolly

... a poet would see them to be, an oasis in the desert, a liner on the ocean, ministers of the life within life that is the hope, the inspiration, and the meaning of the world. In my heart of hearts I apologise as I prolong the banalities of parting, and almost vow never again to abuse Gounod's music. ...
— Appearances - Being Notes of Travel • Goldsworthy Lowes Dickinson

... hither. Bring that tool. Its name I know not; but its use Written on its shape in full Tells me it is no abuse If I strike a hole withal Through this thick opposed wall. The rainbow-pavement! Never heed it— What is that, where light is needed? Where? I care not; quickest best. What kind of window would I choose? Foolish man, what sort of ...
— A Hidden Life and Other Poems • George MacDonald

... journalist like all the poisons. Taunts, jeers, abuse were heaped on the silly head of Cranajour, who, all in vain, raised his eyes to heaven, beat his chest, shrugged his shoulders, stammered, ...
— Messengers of Evil - Being a Further Account of the Lures and Devices of Fantomas • Pierre Souvestre

... employ ethical generalities assume especial authority for themselves and their views. These methods of discussion are most employed in treating of social topics, and they are disastrous to sound study of facts. They help to hold the social sciences under the dominion of metaphysics. The abuse has been most developed in connection with political economy, which has been almost robbed of the character of a serious discipline by converting ...
— Folkways - A Study of the Sociological Importance of Usages, Manners, Customs, Mores, and Morals • William Graham Sumner

... and the qualities of those persons who are required to carry out old rules. Hence the really honest and useful practitioners of the law endured a full share of the obloquy caused by the misconduct of venal justices and corrupt officials. Counsel, attorneys, and even scriveners came in for abuse. It was averred that they conspired to pick the public pocket; that eminent conveyancers not less than copying clerks, swelled their emoluments by knavish tricks. They would talk for the mere purpose of protracting litigation, injure their clients by vexations and bootless delays, and do their ...
— A Book About Lawyers • John Cordy Jeaffreson

... Free-trade will shortly convince all but those connected with the late Hongs, that the changes recently effected in the relations of the Celestial Empire with other countries, are not deserving of the abuse that has been so abundantly ...
— Trade and Travel in the Far East - or Recollections of twenty-one years passed in Java, - Singapore, Australia and China. • G. F. Davidson

... masterpieces the most intellectual brain since Von Buelow's—and entre nous, ten times the musical equipment. D'Albert plays Bach, Beethoven, and Brahms as no one else on this globe—and he matches Paderewski in his merciless abuse of the keyboard. Either a new instrument, capable of sustaining the ferocious attacks upon it, must be fabricated, or else there must be a ...
— Old Fogy - His Musical Opinions and Grotesques • James Huneker

... Church of St. Michael within the palace. They tried to do it the next Sunday in the cathedral, upon which a fierce tumult broke out, and they were mishandled and driven out by the people. Now the party of Severus, favoured by the emperor and many officials, broke out into loud abuse of Macedonius. Thereupon the faithful part of his flock rose for their bishop, and the streets rung with the cry, "It is the time of martyrdom; let no man forsake his father". Anastasius was declared a Manichean and unfit to rule. The ...
— The Formation of Christendom, Volume VI - The Holy See and the Wandering of the Nations, from St. Leo I to St. Gregory I • Thomas W. (Thomas William) Allies

... embarrassing: breaking something, causing pain, exhibiting the sexual organs; the patient may be transported by violent rage, and abuse relatives, friends or even perfect strangers; he may spit carelessly, or undress himself—possibly with a vague idea that he is unwell, and ...
— Epilepsy, Hysteria, and Neurasthenia • Isaac G. Briggs

... and civilly ratified, or allowed of, in free and open parliament, afterward sworn to in the National Covenant annis 1580, 1581 and 1590. At the same time, some other acts were passed, in favor of reformation; one against the mass and abuse of the sacraments; another, abolishing the Pope's jurisdiction and authority with this realm, &c. In the above mentioned year 1560, the first book of policy and discipline, containing the form and order ...
— Act, Declaration, & Testimony for the Whole of our Covenanted Reformation, as Attained to, and Established in Britain and Ireland; Particularly Betwixt the Years 1638 and 1649, Inclusive • The Reformed Presbytery

... no further information was to be gained on this point, I turned the conversation to Montreuil. I found, from Madame de Balzac's very abuse of him, that he enjoyed a great reputation in the country and a great favour at court. He had been early befriended by Father la Chaise, and he was now especially trusted and esteemed by the successor of that Jesuit Le Tellier,—Le Tellier, that rigid and bigoted ...
— Devereux, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... effect of this performance upon the audience. Every Greek was a trained critic, and as unsparing in his hisses as he was lavish in his applause. Many a singer far better than this absurd fop had been driven amid execration and abuse from the platform. But now, as the man stopped and wiped the abundant sweat from his fat face, the whole assembly burst into a delirium of appreciation. The shepherd held his hands to his bursting head, and felt that his ...
— The Last Galley Impressions and Tales - Impressions and Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle

... to have hearts to feel the greatest enjoyment in tender love for others. See that you keep that love in constant exercise, or, like others of our best gifts, it may grow dull by disuse or abuse. The time may come when, deprived of your parents or brothers and sisters, you will bitterly mourn the sorrow you have caused by your evil temper ...
— Stories of Animal Sagacity • W.H.G. Kingston

... ask me for his property, of which I have kept back the revenues, which may have been rather an abuse of power, as, after all, he has ...
— Chicot the Jester - [An abridged translation of "La dame de Monsoreau"] • Alexandre Dumas

... and physic only for necessity. They that use them otherwise abuse themselves into weak bodies and light purses. They are good remedies, bad businesses, and ...
— Book of Wise Sayings - Selected Largely from Eastern Sources • W. A. Clouston

... the elephant-house to the effect that buns sold for the benefit of the occupants have not reached their destination. Should this abuse continue it will be necessary to make arrangements to have every child under the age of twelve submitted to an X-ray examination before leaving ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, April 25, 1917 • Various

... sight of the balance-sheet a kind of horror has come over the marchesa. So intense is this feeling, she absolutely forgets to abuse Silvestro. All she desires is to get rid of him before she ...
— The Italians • Frances Elliot

... long make himself any such promise. It seemed to him that his son's mind was of a nature very different from his own; and much like to that of his grandfather. The lad could be awakened to no enthusiasm in the abuse of Conservative leaders. And those Babingtons were such fools! He despised the whole race of them,—especially those thick-legged, romping, cherry-cheeked damsels, of whom, no doubt, his son would marry one. They were all of the earth earthy, without an idea among ...
— John Caldigate • Anthony Trollope

... ruffians skulked back to dressing quarters, there to abuse the referee, the "Gridley kickers" and everyone ...
— The High School Captain of the Team - Dick & Co. Leading the Athletic Vanguard • H. Irving Hancock

... ever. Jeffreys, exasperated—since without the admission it would be difficult to convict her ladyship—invited the jury to take notice of the strange, horrible carriage of the fellow, and heaped abuse upon the snivelling, canting sect of which he was a member. Finally, he reminded Dunne of his oath to tell the truth, and addressed him with a ...
— The Historical Nights' Entertainment • Rafael Sabatini

... going mad. The blackness and solitude and silence and remorse and despair were more than his excitable nature could bear any longer. He prayed Hawes to come and abuse him. He prayed Fry to bring the jacket to him. "Let me but see a man, or hear a man!" He screamed, and cursed, and prayed, and dashed himself on the ground and ran round the cell wounding his hands and his face. Suddenly he turned deadly calm. He saw he was ...
— It Is Never Too Late to Mend • Charles Reade

... troops have been for two years treating Southern towns with ten times more harshness. They are the most unpatriotic people I ever saw, and openly state that they don't care which side wins provided they are left alone. They abuse Lincoln tremendously. ...
— Three Months in the Southern States, April-June 1863 • Arthur J. L. (Lieut.-Col.) Fremantle

... all the endless welter of abuse of God's great gift of speech [and writing] about the French Revolution, perhaps nothing has emerged more clearly than that its evils were mainly due to the sterilisation of the regular Provincial assemblies ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 1 - From the Beginning to 1800 • George Saintsbury

... in the garden, and its heart was the dewiest and most tender. But he remembered the crimson roses and it seemed too white. Then he could not detect its fragrance, for he had killed his sense of smell by its abuse with the other roses, some of which stood as high and beautiful as before, but others were left bruised and broken by his ruthless desire to please, yes, to indulge himself. As he plucked his own rose, he was aware of no sense of joy over it, except from pride, for many travellers ...
— The Heart of the Rose • Mabel A. McKee

... a kindly law which has been implanted in her bosom, and can never be displanted. She has no need of seeds in her cunning laboratory to perpetuate plant-life, and only yields them to man for use, and not abuse. He can utilize them if he will, so that all things of beauty and golden-fruited promise shall be his. In the language of her greatest and ...
— Life: Its True Genesis • R. W. Wright

... I am pursuing an unusual course," she replied, "but I promise your honor, and also the honorable district attorney, that I will not abuse my privilege, and if you gentlemen will bear with me I am certain that I shall be able to render a distinct service to ...
— An American Suffragette • Isaac N. Stevens

... fill of it for all that," he said. And it was not long after that till he saw a Man of Enchantments coming towards him armed, having no friendly look. And it was in no friendly way he spoke to Diarmuid when he came up to him, but he gave him great abuse. "It is no right thing," he said, "to be walking through my thickets and to be drinking up my share of water." With that they faced one another angrily, and they fought till the end ...
— Gods and Fighting Men • Lady I. A. Gregory

... by far the most important abuse which appeared on any of the above heads was that which was charged relative to the sale in gross by Mr. Hastings of nothing less than the whole authority of the country government in the disposal of the guardianship of ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VIII. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... had spoken of immorality between married and unmarried people. He could not explain to his pupils what immorality between husband and wife meant, although he was a married man himself; but on the subject of immorality in all its other aspects he was well-informed. He went on to the subject of self-abuse. As he pronounced the word a rustling sound passed through the rows of young men; they stared at him, with white cheeks and hollow eyes, as if a phantom had appeared in their midst. As long as he kept to the tortures of hell fire, they remained fairly indifferent, but when he took ...
— Married • August Strindberg

... of truth in the "wearing" of the portesse, indicating the abuse of books by idle readers, so thoroughly characteristic of unwilling ...
— Stones of Venice [introductions] • John Ruskin

... malevolently, but offered me no abuse. Ward proudly flourished the hair he had retrieved from the Granville cabin, and the trophies were soon fastened to a tall pole and paraded around the camp, after which demonstration the pole was stuck ...
— A Virginia Scout • Hugh Pendexter

... contend against its true forms, and its legitimate exercise, were to give into the very error which you formerly yourself condemned, of arguing against the use of a salutary principle altogether, on account of its being liable to occasional abuse. When turned into the right direction, and applied to its true purposes, it prompts to every dignified and generous enterprise. It is erudition in the portico, skill in the lycaeum, eloquence in the senate, victory in the field. It forces indolence into activity, ...
— A Practical View of the Prevailing Religious System of Professed Christians, in the Middle and Higher Classes in this Country, Contrasted with Real Christianity. • William Wilberforce

... course Theobald came under severe attack by succeeding editors of Shakespeare, notably Warburton and Johnson, yet both men were guilty of unwarranted abuse of their predecessor, whose edition was nine times issued in the course of the century and was still in current use by the time of Coleridge (cf. Wm. Jaggard, Shakespeare Bibliography, 1911, pp. 499-504). ...
— Preface to the Works of Shakespeare (1734) • Lewis Theobald

... discovery, he decided for a fraudulent bankruptcy rather than an ordinary failure, and preferred a crime to a misdemeanor. He determined, after the fashion of the celebrated cashier of the Royal Treasury, to abuse the trust deservedly won, and to increase the number of his creditors by making a final loan of the sum sufficient to keep him in comfort in a foreign country for the rest of his days. All this, as has been seen, he had prepared ...
— Library of the World's Best Mystery and Detective Stories • Edited by Julian Hawthorne

... repair to the English church and cemetery, Pere-la-chaise in miniature, where, if they be of England, they may well be excused if they kiss the cold tomb, as I did, of the author of Amelia, the most singular genius which their island ever produced, whose works it has long been the fashion to abuse in public and to read in secret. In the same cemetery rest the mortal remains of Doddridge, another English author of a different stamp, but justly admired and esteemed. I had not intended, on disembarking, to remain long in Lisbon, nor indeed in Portugal; my ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow

... I think we are all of us scoundrels and hypocrites. I myself am a degraded old man, and as useless as a cast-off shoe. I abuse myself as much as any one else. I was rich once, and free, and happy at times, but now I am a dependent, an object of charity, a joke to the world. When I am at last exasperated and defy them, they answer me with a laugh. When I laugh, ...
— Ivanoff - A Play • Anton Checkov

... house of lords. The most unsuspected of all our patriots, Mr. Burke, was reduced to the necessity of so far contracting his system of reform upon this account, as to have afforded a handle to superficial raillery and abuse. ...
— Four Early Pamphlets • William Godwin

... ancient custom established in these places, under the guise of punishing an unjust affront, weakens a kingdom [by depriving it] of its best warriors; the deplorable success of this abuse [of power] often crushes the innocent and shields the guilty. From this [ordeal] I release Rodrigo; he is too precious to me to expose him to the [death] blows of capricious fate; and whatever (offence) ...
— The Cid • Pierre Corneille

... Menander in this instance raised the idea of woman from the mire it was plunged into by the comic poets, or rather satiric dramatists, of the middle period of Greek Comedy preceding him and the New Comedy, who devoted their wit chiefly to the abuse, and for a diversity, to the eulogy of extra-mural ladies of conspicuous fame. Menander idealized them without purposely elevating. He satirized a certain Thais, and his Thais of the Eunuchus of Terence is ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... informed me of the imperative wishes of his boat's crew. M. Berthemie agreed with me to suffer some abuse such as could only be tolerated by a servant threatened by his master; all the ...
— Biographies of Distinguished Scientific Men • Francois Arago

... was made known to her that she was to be burned at the stake in the market-place of Rouen, before a multitude of people, she burst into piercing cries of agony. Her physical strength, courage, and brain-power were all impaired by the months of abuse she had endured, and her very soul was torn by the neglect and indifference which the base king manifested toward her. Up to the very last hour she had believed deliverance would come, but it came only through death. Never since that spectacle of the bleeding Nazarene upon the Cross of ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 5 of 8 • Various

... idea still persists among the multitude," Larcher goes on, "and many parents abuse it in practice. There are people who look upon their children mainly as instruments sent from Heaven for them to live by. From the time their children begin to show signs of intelligence, they lay plans and ...
— The Mystery of Murray Davenport - A Story of New York at the Present Day • Robert Neilson Stephens

... corruption of the judges, by which the fountains of justice were poisoned, seemed of still more dangerous consequence. Edward, in order to remedy this prevailing abuse, summoned a parliament, and brought the judges to a trial; where all of them, except two, who were clergymen, were convicted of this flagrant iniquity, were fined, and deposed. The amount of the fines levied upon them is alone a sufficient proof of their guilt; being above one hundred ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part B. - From Henry III. to Richard III. • David Hume

... establish the honour of the Prussian name, except by bravely taking the field, as a model of German princes, against the superior force of Louis XIV.? The policy, to which the Prussian government has again pledged itself, will be unanimously approved of by the Prussian people. The abuse which Russia has made of the name of Religion can deceive none, but such as are willing to be deceived. Catholic Christendom, with the Pope and the dignitaries of the Catholic Church in England and France at its head, have ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 238, May 20, 1854 • Various

... "He can't abuse her, that's one good thing about the whelp," thought Bert as he crushed the young bridegroom's hand in his brown palm, just to ...
— A Little Norsk; Or, Ol' Pap's Flaxen • Hamlin Garland

... she did not want to marry him, but was willing to live with him without. He was very devout, and his religious convictions would not allow him to "live in sin"; he insisted on her marrying him, and would consent to nothing else, and when he was drunk he used to abuse her and even beat her. Whenever he got drunk she used to hide upstairs and sob, and on such occasions Alehin and the servants stayed in the house to be ready to defend her in case ...
— The Wife and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov

... a weak woman with your purpose definitely planned out. You say—'For a certain length of time she will talk to me of her husband, then of God, and then of the inevitable consequences. But I will use and abuse the ascendancy I shall gain over her; I will make myself indispensable; all the bonds of habit, all the misconstructions of outsiders, will make for me; and at length, when our liaison is taken for granted by all the world, I shall be ...
— The Thirteen • Honore de Balzac

... suppression of the vice, the famine, changes in the habits of the people, and smuggling; but it is the conviction of all the officials concerned in handling opium that its use is not so general as formerly, and its abuse is very small. They claim that it is used chiefly by hard-working people and enables them to resist fatigue and sustain privation, and that the prevailing opinion that opium consumers are all degraded, ...
— Modern India • William Eleroy Curtis

... country at the capital of an ancient monarchy, a man was selected whom, it is no abuse of language to declare, Titus Oates after his release from the pillory would have blushed to recognize. On the eve of his departure, as one may learn from the newspapers of the day, all that was richest and best in New York gathered around ...
— Destruction and Reconstruction: - Personal Experiences of the Late War • Richard Taylor

... poor wagoner, Jean Julien,[3117] condemned to twelve years in irons, has been exposed in the pillory. After two hours he becomes furious, probably on account of the jeers of the bystanders. With the coarseness of people of his kind he has vented his impotent rage by abuse, he has unbuttoned and exposed himself to the public, and has naturally chosen expressions which would appear most offensive to ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 3 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 2 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine

... brought out the marvellous military genius of Napoleon, who intoxicated the nation by his victories, and who, in reward of his extraordinary services, was made First Consul, with dictatorial powers. The abuse of these powers, his usurpation of imperial dignity, the wars into which he was drawn to maintain his ascendency, and his final defeat at Waterloo, constitute the most brilliant chapter in the history of modern times. The Revolution was succeeded by military despotism. ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume IX • John Lord

... him, and told him, how wicked it was in him, to be so brutish to abuse a friend, and run mad for a woman. And then he said he was sorry for it; and then Will. ventured in with water and a towel; and the dog rejoiced, as I could see by his look, that I ...
— Clarissa Harlowe, Volume 9 (of 9) - The History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson

... are simply vulgar; but harmony of color and grace of outline have a legitimate sphere in the theatre, and the method which uses them as adjuncts may claim to be "as wholesome as sweet, and by very much more handsome than fine." For the abuse of scenic decoration, the overloading of the stage with ornament, the subordination of the play to a pageant, I have nothing to say. That is all foreign to the artistic purpose which should dominate dramatic ...
— The Drama • Henry Irving

... that extensively prevails,—how ready they often are to sacrifice everything for the sake of a good lesson,—how false are their notions of true economy in mental labor, ... sacrificing their physical natures most unscrupulously to their intellectual. Indeed, so strong had this passion for abuse become [in this institution], that no study of the laws of the physical organization, no warning, no painful experiences of their own or of their associates, were sufficient to overcome their readiness for self-sacrifice." ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 23, September, 1859 • Various

... as a martyr to freedom and sound government. Pilgrimages were made to the scene of his death, and miracles were wrought with his relics. A chapel arose on the little hill dedicated to his worship, and a loud cry arose for his canonisation. The abuse made by his enemies of their victory only strengthened his reputation among the people. The tragedy of his fall appealed to the rude sympathies of the north-countrymen, and the merit of the cause atoned in their minds for the ...
— The History of England - From the Accession of Henry III. to the Death of Edward III. (1216-1377) • T.F. Tout

... ran up to a point, but there was little hair on the top of it. Achilles and Ulysses hated him worst of all, for it was with them that he was most wont to wrangle; now, however, with a shrill squeaky voice he began heaping his abuse on Agamemnon. The Achaeans were angry and disgusted, yet none the less he kept on brawling and bawling at ...
— The Iliad • Homer

... destroyed, to the great regret of their owners, who made twice as large a profit from the spirit distilled by them out of wheat, as they would have been able to have gained, had they sold their grain for the purpose of making bread. So common was the abuse of paying wages in liquor,[107] that it was pretended that the produce of these stills was only to be paid away in labour, whereas it was sold for a means of intoxication to any person who would bring ready money for it. At the commencement of harvest, in the November immediately ...
— Australia, its history and present condition • William Pridden

... you stayed out of it, instead of coming into it, then the King would begin to abuse the Poet and send for Sruti-bhushan again. And then there would be no hope of salvation for him. For the World Poet himself would be defeated. And the South Wind of Spring would have to retire, without ...
— The Cycle of Spring • Rabindranath Tagore

... hand, Cooper generally fails when he undertakes to draw a character which requires for its successful execution a nice observation and a delicate hand. His heroes and heroines are apt to abuse the privilege which such personages have enjoyed, time out of mind, of being insipid. Nor can he catch and reproduce the easy grace and unconscious dignity of high-bred men and women. His gentlemen, whether young or old, are apt to be stiff, priggish, and commonplace; and his ladies, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 09, No. 51, January, 1862 • Various

... nearly analogous to Gold Coast fetishism as a whole. Some one seems to have called the palladium a fetish. I don't exactly know what the palladium (called a fetish by somebody) was. The hasta fetialis has been styled a fetish—an apparent abuse of language. As to the Holy Cross qua fetish, ...
— Modern Mythology • Andrew Lang

... have been written after reading the manuscripts, and prepared to accompany the printed volumes and tracts. They all allude to the envy and detraction to which he was subject, and which must have amounted to a storm of abuse and perhaps ridicule; and they all tax the English vocabulary to extol Smith, his deeds, and his works. In putting forward these tributes of admiration and affection, as well as in his constant allusion to the ill requital of his services, ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner

... accounts for it. (He kisses her hand.) A thousand pardons. I didn't mind about the despatches at all: that's more the General's affair than mine: it was the abuse of my confidence through the better side of my nature. (Taking his cap, gloves, and whip from the table and going.) You'll excuse my leaving you, General, I hope. Very sorry, I'm sure. (He talks himself out of the room. Giuseppe follows him ...
— The Man of Destiny • George Bernard Shaw

... sophistry of my selfishness, that the better nature in me called it only fatherly friendship, and did not recognize it as that abominable thing so favoured of all those that especially worship themselves. But I abuse my fault ...
— Annals of a Quiet Neighbourhood • George MacDonald

... remorseful again. Abuse a man dead and gone, and one, too, who had been good to him in many ways when he, the professor, was younger than he is now, and had just quarrelled with a father who was always only too prone to quarrel with anyone ...
— A Little Rebel - A Novel • Margaret Wolfe Hungerford

... the choir, only those in the front rows singing the solemn words of the ecclesiastical office. The Council of Trent (1545-1563) commented upon this state of things with great severity, and appointed a commission to inquire into the abuse and decide upon a remedy. It was contemplated to entirely do away with elaborate music in the Church, and sing only the Gregorian songs. A few of the music-loving cardinals succeeded in preventing so sweeping an order, ...
— A Popular History of the Art of Music - From the Earliest Times Until the Present • W. S. B. Mathews

... conceive—conversation of the most gross description, alleged to have taken place between herself and the defendant. They appeared to have got from words to blows and, while trying to fasten the gate, the defendant hit her across the hand with a stick. She alleged that there was no cause for the abuse and the assault, so far as she knew, and in reply to rigid cross-examination as to the origin of the quarrel, adhered to this statement. Mrs. Susannah Gathercole also corroborated the statement as to the assault, ...
— Folklore as an Historical Science • George Laurence Gomme

... the honour" of being rancorously abused by every unmanly scoundrel, every sycophantic lackey, and every political and religious renegade in the kingdom. His fury was that of an angry bull tormented by gnats. His worst passions were aroused, his most violent prejudices confirmed. But the abuse did not divert him by a hairbreadth from his preconceived plan. He proceeded with deliberation to carry on in "The Romany Rye" the story so abruptly suspended at the close of the hundredth chapter of "Lavengro." The first chapters of ...
— George Borrow - Times Literary Supplement, 10th July 1903 • Thomas Seccombe

... Civil War invented a good many new words with which to abuse the enemy. Milton, who wrote on the side of the Parliament, made a great many; but the Royalists invented more, and perhaps more expressive, words. At any rate they have been kept and used as quite ordinary English ...
— Stories That Words Tell Us • Elizabeth O'Neill

... Most men are. I feel that I have never had my opportunity. What is this wealth that is offered me, but an opportunity? There never was so much to be done with wealth—so much sheer living to be got out of it, as there is to-day. Luxury and self-indulgence are the mere abuse of wealth. Wealth means everything nowadays that a man is most justified in desiring!—supposing he has the brains to use it. That at any rate is my belief. It always has been my belief. Trust me—that ...
— The Mating of Lydia • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... office and asked me who that tramp was whom he had seen several times go away with books. I told him the whole story, thinking to arouse his sympathy. What was my surprise when he broke out into a mild stream of abuse—the more startling because he ordinarily says so little—against allowing such besotted tramps to come into the offices! When a man drank himself into such a state as that there was no doing anything with him, etc. O'Meara came back in a day or two with his "copy," and I told him that the ...
— The Jessica Letters: An Editor's Romance • Paul Elmer More

... now to an end, it never returned on me again. When I arrived at Florence, I hoped to find my dear father, and knocking at the door, a hump-backed woman in a fury showed her face at the window; she drove me off with a torrent of abuse, screaming that the sight of me was a consumption to her. To this misshapen hag I shouted: "Ho! tell me, cross-grained hunchback, is there no other face to see here but your ugly visage?" "No, and bad luck to you." Whereto I answered in a loud voice: "In less than two hours may it [5] never ...
— The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini • Benvenuto Cellini

... they will find them there also. But they will find none of their own favourite concetti; hardly even a metaphor; no taint of this new poetic diction into which we have now fallen, after all our abuse of the far more manly and sincere "poetic diction" of the eighteenth century; they will find no loitering by the way to argue and moralise, and grumble at Providence, and show off the author's own genius and sensibility; they will find, in short, two real works of art, earnest, ...
— Literary and General Lectures and Essays • Charles Kingsley

... violation of the civilized and Christian tradition of European arms. By the rules of such warfare the non-combatant was spared, wherever possible; not only his life but his property and liberty were secure so long as he did not abuse his position. ...
— Raemaekers' Cartoons - With Accompanying Notes by Well-known English Writers • Louis Raemaekers

... knowen. But as time & experience do reforme euery thing that is amisse, so this bitter poeme called the old Comedy, being disused and taken away, the new Comedy came in place, more ciuill and pleasant a great deale and not touching any man by name, but in a certain generalitie glancing at euery abuse, so as from thenceforth fearing none ill-will or enmitie at any bodies hands, they left aside their disguisings & played bare face, till one Roscius Gallus the most excellent player among the Romaines brought vp these vizards, which we see at this ...
— The Arte of English Poesie • George Puttenham

... as Commissioner to Tuscany, Ralph Izard of South Carolina, who, without rendering a single service, without even going near the court to which he was accredited, continued for two years to draw his salary and abuse Dr. Franklin. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 91, May, 1865 • Various

... although easily aroused, never lasted very long; and, upon the whole, it was really astonishing what he put up with from Jack Pringle, in the way of taunts and sneers, of all sorts and descriptions, and now and then not a little real abuse. ...
— Varney the Vampire - Or the Feast of Blood • Thomas Preskett Prest

... Southern Slavs being torn by internal strife, it is necessary between Serbia and Bulgaria that one of them should for a time be paramount. We may be confident that Serbia will not abuse her position. In fact it is the opinion of a Roumanian lady at Monastir that the Serbs were uncommonly rash in taking into their service so many who once had called themselves Bulgars and now maintain that they are Serbs. But Serbia has become relatively so strong that she can ...
— The Birth of Yugoslavia, Volume 2 • Henry Baerlein

... mechanical toy failed to set in motion. In like manner we repeat that the power to determine his own course raises man to a plane incomparably higher than he could have occupied as an automaton. The same faculty of free choice which in its abuse makes the sinner, in its right {99} exercise furnishes forth the saint. All that we mean by moral progress, by "the steady gain of man," his rise to more exalted ideals, his conquest of baser appetites—all ...
— Problems of Immanence - Studies Critical and Constructive • J. Warschauer

... God cut his days short; for he and another wicked companion left their troop at Lanerk, and came with two servants and four horses to Kilkcagow, searching for sufferers. Gordon rambling through the town, offering to abuse some women, at night coming to East-seat, Gordon's comrade went to bed, but he would sleep none, roaring all night for women. In the morning, he left the rest, and with his sword in his hand came to Moss-plate. Some ...
— Biographia Scoticana (Scots Worthies) • John Howie

... cook this time, and he turned and stared at Jimmy as though he had seen a ghost. When he found tongue he uttered a volume of opinion and abuse which Jimmy knew by instinct was not fit to be translated, and then he fled ...
— The Stolen Singer • Martha Idell Fletcher Bellinger

... arrangements have been made—that a man of such vigour and efficiency has taken the conduct of the War Department, with such a consolidation of offices as to enable him to have the entire control of the whole of the War Offices—so that any supply may be immediately furnished, and any abuse instantly remedied." I felt I could not honestly make such a declaration; I therefore felt that I could come only to one conclusion, and that as I could not resist inquiry—by giving the only assurances which I thought sufficient to prevent it—my ...
— Lord John Russell • Stuart J. Reid



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