Abuse
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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Abuse is a general term for the use or treatment of something (person, thing, idea, etc.) that causes some kind of harm (to the abused person or thing, to the abusers themselves, or to someone else) or is unlawful or wrongful. Its close synonyms are mistreatment and maltreatment. The word "misuse" has a more distant meaning of incorrect, uneducated use, not necessarily harmful to a person.
Abuse can be something as simple as damaging a piece of equipment through using it the wrong way, or as serious as severe maltreatment of a person. Abuse may be direct and overt, or it may be disguised and covert. A threshold question is whether the person or people can immediately defend themselves against threatened or actual harm - this goes to the question of power.
