You can hold abuse as using or treating something the wrong way — not the way it's meant to be used, but in a way that wounds. The Latin behind it literally means 'to use away,' to use something up against its proper purpose. Picture power, a person, an animal, a thing — all meant to be handled with some care — being handled instead to hurt, to take advantage, to wear down. Both the noun (the ) and the verb (doing it) grow from this one bent picture: use turned harmful.
From the word’s history
abuse traces to Latin 'abusus,' the past participle of 'abuti' — 'ab' (off, away from) + 'uti' (to use) — literally 'to use away / use up,' which already carried the sense of misusing or misapplying. That 'use, but in the wrong direction' is exactly the modern core.
abuse 可以追到拉丁文 abusus,是 abuti 的過去分詞——由 ab(離開、偏離)加 uti(使用)組成,字面就是「用偏、用掉」,本來就帶著『用錯、誤用』的意思。這個『有在用,但方向歪了』正好就是現代的核心畫面,所以從『使用』到『濫用、虐待』這條線是有來歷的。
Etymonline, 'abuse' — from Latin abusus, pp. of abuti, from ab- 'off, away from' + uti 'to use' — https://www.etymonline.com/word/abuse
登入就可以看每一支怎麼連回核心畫面。
原始詞典資料15 筆記錄
以下是外部詞典記錄的用法,摘錄並精簡格式,我們還沒有寫成教學內容。上面的說明才是我們自己寫的;有些用法可能上面已經講過了。
abusenoun詞源 1/əˈbjuːs/
- 1
Improper treatment or usage; application to a wrong or bad purpose; an unjust, corrupt or wrongful practice or custom.
- human rights abuses
- All abuse, whether physical, verbal, psychological or sexual, is bad.
- 2
Misuse; improper use; perversion.
- Liberty may be endangered by the abuses of liberty, as well as by the abuses of power.
- 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?
- 3
obsoleteA delusion; an imposture; misrepresentation; deception.
- Or is it some abuse, and no such thing?
- 4
Coarse, insulting speech; abusive language; language that unjustly or angrily vilifies.
- children hurling abuse at each other
- The two parties, after exchanging a good deal of abuse, came to blows.
- 5
archaicCatachresis.
- 6
Physical maltreatment; injury; cruel treatment.
- 7
Violation; defilement; rape; forcing of undesired sexual activity by one person on another, often on a repeated basis.
abuseverb詞源 2/əˈbjuːz/
- 1
To put to a wrong use; to misapply; to use improperly; to use for a wrong purpose or end; to pervert
- He abused his authority.
- This principle (if we may so abuse the word) shot rapidly into popularity
- 2
To injure; to maltreat; to hurt; to treat with cruelty, especially repeatedly.
- Blows with the fist should be given on the back of the woman, which she is sitting on the lap of the man, and she should give blows in return, abusing the man as if she were angry, and making the cooing and the weeping sounds.
- And I would have things to say to this God at the judgement, storming at him, as Job stormed with the eloquence of the abused heart.
- 3
To attack with coarse language; to insult; to revile; malign; to speak in an offensive manner to or about someone; to disparage.
- The […] tellers of news abused the general.
- But ever and always curse him and abuse him.
- 4
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.
- 5
archaicTo violate; defile; to rape; (reflexive) to masturbate.
- Like Angels life was then mens happy cace; But later ages pride, like corn-fed ſteed, Abuſd her plenty, and fat ſwolne encreace To all licentious luſt, and gan exceed
- This the Holy Scripture teaches, as expreſly as may be; Neither Fornicators, ſays St. Paul, nor Adulterers, nor the Abominable, ſhall inherit the Kingdom of God; cautioning alſo at the ſame time, that we don’t abuſe our ſelves, nor flatter our ſelves in this Reſpect.
- 6
obsoleteMisrepresent; adulterate.
- Believe me, sir, he hath been abused, grossly abused to you.
- 7
obsoleteTo deceive; to trick; to impose on; misuse the confidence of.
- 1651-2, Jeremy Taylor, "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 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
- 8
obsoleteDisuse.
摘錄自 英文維基詞典 English Wiktionary,已精簡格式;依 CC BY-SA 4.0 授權使用,改動後的內容同樣以此授權提供。