Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
Definitions: Abusive |
AbusiveAdjective1. Expressing offensive reproach. 2. Characterized by physical or psychological maltreatment; "abusive punishment"; "argued...that foster homes are abusive". Source: WordNet 1.7.1 Copyright © 2001 by Princeton University. All rights reserved. |
Date "abusive" was first used in popular English literature: sometime before 1258. (references) |
Etymology: Abusive \A*bu"sive\, adjective. [Compare to the French expression abusif, from the Latin expression abusivus.]. (Websters 1913) |
Synonyms: AbusiveSynonyms: insulting (adj), opprobrious (adj), scornful (adj), scurrilous (adj). (additional references) |
| Context | Synonyms within Context (source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus). |
Detraction | Adjective: detracting;Verb: defamatory, detractory, derogatory, deprecatory; catty; disparaging, libelous; scurrile, scurrilous; abusive; foul-spoken, foul-tongued, foul-mouthed; slanderous; calumnious, calumniatory; sarcastic, sardonic; sarcastic, satirical, cynical. |
Detractor | Adjective: black-mouthed, abusive. |
Disapprobation | Disparaging, condemnatory, damnatory, denunciatory, reproachful, abusive, objurgatory, clamorous, vituperative; defamatory. |
Discourtesy | Adjective: discourteous, uncourteous; uncourtly; ill-bred, ill-mannered, ill-behaved, ill-conditioned; unbred; unmannerly, unmannered; impolite, unpolite; unpolished, uncivilized, ungenteel; ungentleman-like, ungentlemanly; unladylike; blackguard; vulgar; dedecorous; foul-mouthed foul-spoken; abusive. |
Threat | Adjective: threatening, menacing; minatory, minacious; comminatory, abusive; in terrorem; ominous; (predicting) ; defiant; under the ban. |
| Source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus. | |
Crosswords: Abusive |
| English words defined with "abusive": abuse, Abuseful, abusively, Abusiveness, Affrontive ♦ blackguard ♦ clapperclaw, Convicious ♦ epithet ♦ Hoker ♦ Insultation ♦ Jawing ♦ League offensive and defensive ♦ name ♦ racial discrimination, racialism, racism ♦ scathing, sexism, shout, Slang-whanger ♦ unparliamentary ♦ Viled, vituperative. (references) |
| Specialty definitions using "abusive": Abuse, abuse of law, abuse of right, abusive registration of a domain name ♦ CHIMNEY CHOPS ♦ FOUL-MOUTHED ♦ GUM ♦ nonsense call ♦ Open DeathTrap ♦ RIBALDRY. (references) |
| Etymologies containing "abusive": Abuseful ♦ Convicious. (references) |
| Domain | Usage | |
Screenplays | Hemingway was an abusive alcoholic who squandered his life hanging around Picasso trying to nail his leftovers. (10 Things I Hate About You; writing credit: Karen McCullah Lutz; Kirsten Smith) | |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | ||
| Domain | Title | ||
Books |
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Theater & Movies | |||
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |||
| Subject | Topic | Quote |
Health | Moreover, its use as a means of managing unruly patients, for whom other treatments were not then available, contributed to the perception of ECT as an abusive instrument of behavioral control for patients in mental institutions for the chronically ill. With the introduction of effective psychopharmacologic medications and the development of judicial and regulatory restrictions, the use of ECT has waned. (references) | |
Children | Bahamas | The Department may remove children from abusive situations if the court deems it necessary. (references) |
Brazil | The multiprofessional staff at the centers help victims claim their rights and remove them from abusive situations. (references) | |
Venezuela | The judicial system, although slow, ensures that in most situations children are removed from abusive households once a case has been reported. (references) | |
Civil Liberties | Australia | He found that poor supervision at Woomera had enabled a minority of guards to handle detainees in a humiliating or verbally abusive manner. (references) |
Mozambique | In an effort to reduce harassment and confiscation of travelers' possessions at the borders, customs supervisors levied disciplinary fines and fired abusive customs agents. (references) | |
Canada | The Broadcasting Act, which prohibits programming containing any abusive comment that would expose individuals or groups to hatred or contempt, has not yet been challenged in the courts. (references) | |
Economic History | Uk | Prohibitions under the act relate to competition restricting agreements and abusive behavior by entities in dominant market positions. (references) |
Switzerland | Price controls, part of Swiss competition law since 1986, are primarily aimed at reducing abusive prices for goods and services resulting from a lack of competition, and apply only to members of a cartel or similar organizations subject to this law. (references) | |
Human Rights | Laos | Some prisoners have died as a result of abusive treatment and lack of medical care. (references) |
Political Economy | GREECE | The courts have the power to ban strikes that they find illegal and abusive. (references) |
HAITI | In recent years, the Ministry of Social Affairs has expanded the capacity of its Institute of Social Well-being (IBESR) to remove children from abusive situations. (references) | |
Morocco | Child labor was a problem, and the Government did not act strongly enough to end the plight of young girls who were illegally employed and subjected to exploitative and abusive domestic servitude. (references) | |
Trade | Switzerland | The so-called "soft cartels," however, may continue to enjoy dominant market share as long as they do not indulge in abusive practices such as price fixing or territorial or quantity allocation. (references) |
Travel | Czech Rep | Taxi drivers, particularly those at train stations and those hailed on the street, are notorious for overcharging, sometimes becoming abusive or even violent if exorbitant fares are not paid. (references) |
Women | Pakistan | Police usually return battered women to their abusive family members. (references) |
Worker Rights | Haiti | These efforts resulted in the removal of 760 children from abusive households. (references) |
Saudi Arabia | The authorities in some cases forced maids fleeing abusive employment circumstances to return to their employers. (references) | |
Tanzania | Girls often are employed as domestic servants, mostly in urban households and sometimes under abusive and exploitative conditions. (references) | |
Source: compiled by the editor from ICON Group International, Inc.; see credits. | ||
| Speaker | Term | Phrase(s) |
Bill Clinton | 1993-2001 | Now, those of us who believe passionately in the power of open trade, we have to ensure that it lifts both our living standards and our values, never tolerating abusive child labor or a race to the bottom in the environment and worker protection. |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references. | ||
| "Abusive" is generally used as an adjective (general or positive) -- approximately 100.00% of the time. "Abusive" is used about 283 times out of a sample of 100 million words spoken or written in English. Its rank is based on over 700,000 words used in the English language. Some parts-of-speech are not covered due to the samples used by the British National Corpus. (note: percents less than one-hundredth of one percent have been omitted) |
| Parts of Speech | Percent | Usage per 100 Million Words | Rank in English |
| Adjective (general or positive) | 100% | 283 | 17,340 |
Source: compiled by the editor from several corpora; see credits.
Expressions using "abusive": abusive head trauma ♦ abusive language ♦ abusive letter ♦ abusive registration of a domain name ♦ abusive word ♦ abusive words. Additional references. | |
| Hypenated Usage | |
Ending with "abusive": self-abusive. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| The following statistics estimate the number of searches per day across the major English-language search engines as identified by various trade publications. Hyperlinks lead to commercial use of the expression at Amazon.com. |
| Expression | Frequency per Day |
abusive relationship | 191 |
abusive man | 49 |
abusive husband | 27 |
abusive parent | 21 |
abusive | 20 |
abusive woman | 18 |
abusive behavior | 14 |
abusive boyfriend | 12 |
abusive child | 11 |
abusive personality | 10 |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| Language | Translations for "abusive"; alternative meanings/domain in parentheses. | |
Afrikaan | beledigend (insulting, nasty, offensive, opprobrious). (various references) | |
Albanian | i përdorur gabim, fyes (insulting, offender, offensive, outrageous, vituperative). (various references) | |
Arabic | فاسد (bad, corrupt, decadent, decayed, decomposed, degenerated, depraved, disintegrated, evil, false, foul, immoral, incorrect, infected, invalid, null, perverse, pervertible, putrid, rogue, rotten, spoiled, unsound, vain, vicious, void, wicked, wrong), متعسف (tyrant), مؤذ جسديا, بذئ (blue, broad, curious, salacious, saucy, scurrilous, smutty, spicy). (various references) | |
Bulgarian | оскърбителен (contumelious, galling, insulting, invidious, offensive, opprobrious, rude, uncomplitary, wrongful), обиден (aggrieved, huffy, injured, injurious, insulted, invasive, invidious, offensive, opprobrious, pained, resentful), злоупотребяващ. (various references) | |
Chinese | 虐待 (maltreat, maltreated, Maltreating, maltreatment, mistreatment). (various references) | |
Czech | urážlivý (contumelious, huffish, huffy, hurtful, injurious, invective, obnoxious, offensive, outrageous, petulant, shocking, touchy), hrubý (blue, boorish, brut, brutish, coarse, coarsened, crass, crude, foul-mouthed, grating, gross, gruff, harsh, howling, knockabout, leathery, low, outrageous, raw, rough, rough and ready, ruddy, rude, rustic, scabrous, sylvan, uncouth, uneven, unmannerly, unprintable, vulgar), hanlivý (defamatory, libellous, opprobrious, vituperative). (various references) | |
Danish | abusus medicamentorum (abusive taking of drugs, pharmacomania), uberettiget opstilles hindring for at få adgang til markedet (abusive barring of access to the market), medicinmisbrug (abusive taking of drugs, pharmacomania). (various references) | |
Dutch | krenkend (nasty), grievend (deplorable, nasty, pitiable, sad), beledigend (insulting, nasty, offensive, opprobrious). (various references) | |
Esperanto | ofenda (nasty). (various references) | |
Farsi | فحش (Damn, Darn, Swear, Swearword, Vilification), فریب (Cheat, Deceit, Deception, Defraud, Delusion, Fiction, Humbug, Intake, Jazz, Lurch, Lure, Mace, Seducement, Sophistry, Swindle, Temptation, Wile), ناسزاوار, تهمت (Defamation, Libel, Scandal, Slur, Tax), توهین امیز, تعدی (Incursion, Infringe, Inroad, Oppression), تجاوزبه عصمت , سوء استفاده (Graft, Jobbery, Misuse), سوء استعمال (Illusage), زبان دراز (Random), شیادی (Juggle), دشنام (Curse), بدزبانی , بدزبان (Profane, Ribald). (various references) | |
Finnish | herjaava (libellous). (various references) | |
French | injurieux (abusively), grossier. (various references) | |
German | beleidigend (abusively, affronting, insulting, insultingly, nasty, offending, offensive, offensively, slighting, upsetting), schimpflich (humiliating, insulting, opprobrious, rascally). (various references) | |
Greek | υβριστικόσ (derogatory, insulting, invective, obloquious, opprobrious, vituperative). (various references) | |
Hebrew | מעליב (insulting, offender, opprobrious), מ'"ף (insulter, reviler). (various references) | |
Hungarian | gyalázkodó (defamatory, opprobrious, vituperative), sértegető (abuser, vituperative). (various references) | |
Indonesian | kelewatan (excessive, over, overdo, overload), kasar (abrupt, artless, blunt, boorish, broad, brutal, brutish, crass, crude, curt, disrespectful, gruff, menial, raw, rude, unkind, vulgar). (various references) | |
Italian | offensivo (abusively, aggressive, hurtful, insulting, objectionable, offensive, offensively, rude, scathing, slighting). (various references) | |
Japanese Kanji | 口性無い (gossipy), 口性ない (gossipy), 口汚い (foul-mouthed). (various references) | |
Japanese Katakana | くちぎたない (foul-mouthed), くちさがない (critical, gossipy, jabbering). (various references) | |
Korean | 학대하" (Abused). (various references) | |
Manx | oltooanagh (abuser, censurer, disgraceful, reproachable, reproacher, reproaching, slanderer, vilifier, vituperative), floutagh (aspersive, distainful, flippant, lewdly jocular, mock, reproachful, scornful, scurrilous, slanderous, taunting, vituperative), drogh-ymmydagh, drogh (bad, badness, evil, misfortune, unenviable, wicked), caartragh (abusive person, defamatory, libellous, slanderer). (various references) | |
Pig Latin | abusiveay.(various references) | |
Portuguese | abusivo (improper). (various references) | |
Romanian | aplicat greşit, abuziv (abusively, arbitrary, illegal, illegally, improper, improperly, scurrilous), ofensator (injurious, insulter, invidious, obloquious, offensive, offensively, vexatious), jignitor (cutting, harsh, hurtful, insulting, invidious, obloquious, offensive, offensively, reproachful, stinging), insultãtor (hurtful, injurious, insulting, reproachfully). (various references) | |
Russian | оскорбительный (contumelious, humiliating, injurious, insolent, insulting, invidious, mortifying, offensive, opprobrious, outrageous, scurrilous). (various references) | |
Serbo-Croatian | uvredljiv (hoity toity, insulting, invidious, offending, resentful, umbrageous, uncomplimentary), pogrdan (foul, insulting, invective, libellous, libelous, opprobrious, pejorative), koji zlostavlja. (various references) | |
Spanish | abusivo (improper). (various references) | |
Swedish | ovettig (injurious, scolding). (various references) | |
Turkish | ağzı bozuk (blackguardly, foul-mouthed, foul-spoken, ribald, scurrilous, vituperative), ağir (important, insulting, light, nasty, offensive, serious, slow), taciz eden, küfürlü (bad, sanguinary, scurrilous, slangy), küfürbaz (blackguard, foul-mouthed, foul-spoken, obscene talker, scurrilous, swearer, swearing, vituperative), kötüye kullanan, kötü davranan, hor kullanan. (various references) | |
Turkmen | paяyю. (various references) | |
Ukranian | що погано поводиться, готовий скривдити, готовий образити, образливий (affronting, affrontive, contumelious, humiliating, injurious, insulting, mortifying, obloquious, obscene, offending, offensive, opprobrious, ornery, outrageous, pettish, resentful, slanderous, touchy, umbrageous), лайливий (invective, opprobrious, pejorative). (various references) | |
Vietnamese | sỉ nhục, lạm dụng lăng mạ, h nh hạ (agonizing), chửi rủa lừa dối. (various references) | |
Welsh | tafotrwg (foul-mouthed). (various references) | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various translation references. | ||
| Language | Period | Translations |
| Latin | 500 BCE-Modern | maledicam, maledicas, maledicens, maledicentem, maledicenti, maledicentibus, maledicentis, maledici, maledicos, maledicus. (various references) |
| Late Latin | 300-700 | invectivus. (various references) |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references. | ||
Derivations | |
Words beginning with "abusive": abusively, abusiveness, abusivenesses. (additional references) | |
| |
"Abusive" is suggested in spellcheckers for the following: abbaside, abuif, abusivis, Albusate, alusive, Arbuzov, Aushev. (additional references) | |
| Source: compiled by the editor, based on several corpora (additional references). | |
| # of Phoneme Matches | Pronunciation | Word(s) rhyming with "abusive" (pronounced ubyuw"siv) |
| 4 | -uw" s i v | allusive, collusive, conclusive, conducive, elusive, exclusive, illusive, inclusive, inconclusive, intrusive, nonexclusive, obtrusive, reclusive, unobtrusive. |
| 3 | -s i v | abrasive, adhesive, aggressive, apprehensive, aversive, coercive, cohesive, comprehensive, compulsive, convulsive, corrosive, counteroffensive, decisive, defensive, depressive, derisive, discursive, dismissive, dispersive, divisive, effusive, erosive, evasive, excessive, expansive, expensive, explosive, expressive, extensive, hypertensive, impassive, impressive, impulsive, incisive, indecisive, inexpensive, inoffensive, invasive, massive, missive, nonresponsive, obsessive, offensive, oppressive, passive, pensive, permissive, persuasive, pervasive, possessive, progressive, recessive, reflexive, regressive, repressive, repulsive, responsive, submissive, subversive, successive, unimpressive, unresponsive. |
Source: compiled by the editor (additional references); see credits. | ||
Scrabble® Enable2K-Verified Anagrams | |
| Words within the letters "a-b-e-i-s-u-v" | |
-2 letters: abuse, beaus, suave, uveas, vibes. | |
-3 letters: aves, base, beau, bias, bise, isba, sabe, save, suba, uvea, vase, vaus, vibe, vies, visa, vise. | |
-4 letters: abs, ais, ave, bas, bis, bus, eau, sab, sae, sau, sea, sei, sib, sub, sue, use, vas, vau, via, vie, vis. | |
-5 letters: ab, ae, ai, as, ba, be, bi, es, is, si, us. | |
| Words containing the letters "a-b-e-i-s-u-v" | |
+2 letters: abusively. | |
+3 letters: absolutive, behaviours, subvariety, survivable, vestibular. | |
+4 letters: abusiveness, arboviruses, subcurative, subinterval, substantive, subtractive, subvocalize. | |
+5 letters: attributives, subcuratives, subdividable, subintervals, substantives, subvarieties, subvocalized, subvocalizes, vanquishable, vocabularies. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. SCRABBLE® is a registered trademark. All intellectual property rights in and to the game are owned in the U.S.A and Canada by Hasbro Inc., and throughout the rest of the world by J.W. Spear & Sons Limited of Maidenhead, Berkshire, England, a subsidiary of Mattel Inc. Mattel and Spear are not affiliated with Hasbro. | |
Hexadecimal (or equivalents, 770AD-1900s) (references)41 62 75 73 69 76 65 |
| Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519; backwards) (references)
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| American Sign Language (origins from 1620-1817 in Italy and, especially, France) (references)
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| Semaphore (1791, in France) (references)
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| Braille (1829, in France) (references)
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Morse Code (1836) (references).- -... ..- ... .. ...- . |
| Dancing Men (Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, 1903) (references)
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Binary Code (1918-1938, probably earlier) (references)01000001 01100010 01110101 01110011 01101001 01110110 01100101 |
HTML Code (1990) (references)A b u s i v e |
ISO 10646 (1991-1993) (references)0041 0062 0075 0073 0069 0076 0065 |
| British Sign Language (Fingerspelling, BSL; 1992, British Deaf Association Dictionary of British Sign Language) (references)
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Encryption (beginner's substitution cypher): (references)35688785758871 |
| 1. Definition 2. Synonyms 3. Crosswords 4. Usage: Modern | 5. Usage: Commercial 6. Quotations: Non-fiction 7. Quotations: Speeches 8. Usage Frequency | 9. Expressions 10. Expressions: Internet 11. Translations: Modern 12. Translations: Ancient | 13. Derivations 14. Rhymes 15. Anagrams 16. Orthography | 17. Bibliography |
Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
