Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun Misuse; evil or corrupt usage; violation of right or propriety.
  • noun Reproachful or contumelious language; insult.
  • noun Deceit; illusion.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun Evil or corrupt usage; abuse; wrong; reproach; deception; cheat.

Etymologies

Sorry, no etymologies found.

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Examples

  • He also put out his share of terms soon found to be of less use, like exornation, abusion, and transumption.

    The English Is Coming! Leslie Dunton-Downer 2010

  • He also put out his share of terms soon found to be of less use, like exornation, abusion, and transumption.

    The English Is Coming! Leslie Dunton-Downer 2010

  • Here maye we soone perceyue that by abusion wee take wordes that be somwhat nye, whych property do belong to vnlyke thinges.

    A Treatise of Schemes and Tropes Richard Sherry

  • Because we vse the word rime (though by maner of abusion) yet to helpe that fault againe we apply it in our vulgar Poesie another way very commendably & curiously.

    The Arte of English Poesie George Puttenham

  • Does Chaucer allude to these when speaking of the ‘excesse of divers metis and drinkis, and namely of suche maner of bake metis and dische metes brennyng of wilde fuyr, and _peynted and castelid with papire_, and semblable wast, so that is abusion for to thinke.’

    Early English Meals and Manners Frederick James Furnivall 1867

  • Latin speech, and the _veray_ Roman tongue, which in the time of Tully and Sallust and Virgil and Terence was used -- I say that filthiness, and all such abusion, which the later blind world brought in, which more rather may be called

    Bibliomania; or Book-Madness A Bibliographical Romance Thomas Frognall Dibdin 1811

  • Ye haue another vicious speech which the Greekes call Acyron, we call it the vncouthe, and is when we vse an obscure and darke word, and vtterly repugnant to that we would expresse, if it be not by vertue of the figures metaphore, allegorie, abusion, or such other laudable figure before remembred, as he that said by way of Epithete.

    The Arte of English Poesie 1569

  • Were it not for that, parliaments, and all the fruit and benefit we receive by having them, would turn soon to mere abusion.

    Specimens of English Prose Writers: From the Earliest Times to the Close of the Seventeenth ... 1813

  • _metaphore, allegorie, abusion_, or such other laudable figure before remembred, as he that said by way of _Epithete_.

    The Arte of English Poesie George Puttenham

  • _polisillable_ word: but to the purpose, _ryme_ is a borrowed word from the Greeks by the Latines and French, from them by vs Saxon angles and by abusion as hath bene sayd, and therefore it shall not do amisse to tell what this _rithmos_ was with the Greekes, for what is it with vs hath bene already sayd.

    The Arte of English Poesie George Puttenham

Comments

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  • Despite the fact that abusion hasn't really been used since the 16th century, this is a great word.

    January 10, 2009