Adjective: abusive
Comparison Forms
Synthetic
Perifrastic
| Comparative | more abusive |
| Superlative | most abusive |
Sample Sentences
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All they could ever do was to shout abusive inanities at me.
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"Zero Tolerance. Aggressive and abusive behavior will not be tolerated. Our team are here to help, not hurt," the signs read. [2020 March 17, Freya Noble, “'Our team are here to help, not hurt': Woolworths urge customers not to abuse staff”, in Nine News, archived from the original on 16 Apr 2023:]
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an abusive treaty [a. 1627 (date written), Francis [Bacon], “Considerations Touching a Warre with Spaine. […]”, in William Rawley, editor, Certaine Miscellany Works of the Right Honourable Francis Lo. Verulam, Viscount S. Alban. […], London: […] I. Hauiland for Humphrey Robinson, […], published 1629, →OCLC:]
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[…] to begin in this vacation the foundation of a trifling subject which might shroud in his leaves the abusive enormities of these our times. [1589, Thomas Nashe, The Anatomy of Absurdity:]
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the abusive prerogatives of his see [1837, Henry Hallam, Introduction to the Literature of Europe:]
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I am […]necessitated to use the word Parliament improperly, according to the abusive acceptation thereof. [1662, Thomas Fuller, Worthies of England:]
Adjectives inflected like abusive
priest-ridden,
unreposed,
evadible,
dissentious,
dissentient,
unforesighted,
egocentrical,
unephemeral,
unennobling,
mensuralist,
flocculent,
unseductive,
whoopsy,
whooshy,
surrogate,
Nicodian,
unrepaired,
prismatoidal,
renorenal,
unseducible, etc. (List truncated at 20 adjectives)
Etymology
First attested in the 1530s. From French abusif, from Latin abūsīvus, from abusus + -ivus (“-ive”). Equivalent to abuse + -ive. See: French Adjectives '
abusif', Latin Adjectives '
abūsīvus'.
Verbs referencing "abusive"
Polish Adjectives
abuzywny.