Abusive

//əˈbjuː.sɪv// adj

adj ·Moderate ·High school level

Definitions

Adjective
  1. 1
    Prone to treat someone badly by coarse, insulting words or other maltreatment; vituperative; reproachful; scurrilous.

    "All they could ever do was to shout abusive inanities at me and my colleagues."

  2. 2
    Tending to deceive; fraudulent. obsolete

    "an abusive treaty"

  3. 3
    Tending to misuse; practising or containing abuse. archaic

    "[…] to begin in this vacation the foundation of a trifling subject which might shroud in his leaves the abusive enormities of these our times."

  4. 4
    Being physically or emotionally injurious; characterized by repeated violence or other abuse.
  5. 5
    Wrongly used; perverted; misapplied; unjust; illegal.

    "I am […]necessitated to use the word Parliament improperly, according to the abusive acceptation thereof."

Show 1 more definition
  1. 6
    Catachrestic. archaic
Adjective
  1. 1
    characterized by physical or psychological maltreatment wordnet
  2. 2
    expressing offensive reproach wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms
harmfulopprobriousreproachfulaffrontiveaffrontiveatrocious

Example

More examples

"I had never received such an abusive letter before."

Etymology

First attested in the 1530s. From French abusif, from Latin abūsīvus, from abusus + -ivus (“-ive”). Equivalent to abuse + -ive.

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.