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Misuse   Listen
verb
Misuse  v. t.  
1.
To treat or use improperly; to use to a bad purpose; to misapply; as, to misuse one's talents. "The sweet poison of misused wine."
2.
To abuse; to treat ill. "O, she misused me past the endurance of a block."
Synonyms: To maltreat; abuse; misemploy; misapply.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Misuse" Quotes from Famous Books



... would have thought her deficient in sensibility, judging from the tone of her conversation. She did not freely express admiration, even in the form of assent to what was said by others. To interpret her reticence as shyness was a misunderstanding, or a misuse of words, natural in the case of an inexact observer like Mrs. Rossall. Four years ago, when Beatrice met her in Dunfield, her want of self-confidence was pronounced enough; she had at that time never quitted her provincial home, and was in the anomalous ...
— A Life's Morning • George Gissing

... these questions is that the cure for all that stolid insensibility, and its resulting misuse of capacity, and the absorption in daily visible things, is remembrance of His and our past—'Do ye not remember?' It was only that same morning, or the day before at the furthest, that one of the miracles of feeding the thousands had been performed. Christ wonders, as ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Mark • Alexander Maclaren

... genius to use it well for comic purposes. Much indeed of this comic use turns on the existence and degradation of recognised serious writing. There was little or no opportunity for any such use or misuse in the infant vernaculars; there was abundant opportunity in literary Latin. Accordingly we find, and should expect to find, very early parodies of the offices and documents of the Church,—things not unnaturally shocking to piety, but not perhaps to be justly ...
— The Flourishing of Romance and the Rise of Allegory - (Periods of European Literature, vol. II) • George Saintsbury

... and at that she gave his hand a quick pressure. "If I can do anything at all for you, you will let me, won't you. I'm afraid you'll be so well provided for that there won't be anything. Ask them to slight you, to misuse you in something, so that I can come to ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... said Lestocq, after a moment's reflection, "that any one who dares so misuse his tongue as to revile the sublime majesty of his emperor or empress with irreverent language, such criminal shall have the instrument of his crime, his tongue, torn out ...
— The Daughter of an Empress • Louise Muhlbach

... long since died away; and I have but too much cause to condemn those actions of my life in which they were indulged. The relation, whom I hope to find, I may unfortunately discover to be more likely to misuse the wealth, that has devolved to me by the death of the elder branches of my family, than to make it a blessing to himself and others. It is true he is not my heir at law. I have no heir: what I possess is at my own disposal. But he was once my greatest favourite: and I would ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft

... the worst interpretation which suggests itself! How appositely the "Canon's Yeoman" describes the arrogance of those who are too clever by half; "when a man has an over-great wit," he says, "it very often chances to him to misuse it"! And with how ripe a wisdom, combined with ethics of true gentleness, the honest "Franklin," at the opening of his "Tale," discourses on the uses and the beauty ...
— Chaucer • Adolphus William Ward

... common feasts; drunkenness, gaming, and other vicious and unprofitable pursuits." These restrictions the royal pedant thought incompatible with the public weal, and graciously answered the petitioners in such-wise that he would have these over-righteous zealots rebuked; that it was a misuse of their authority; and that he would not only grant the humble request of his subjects, but, on that very evening he would have a masque and an allegory, with dancing and other like diversions, by the lords ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby

... discarded for tampering with Master George; then for the warder's tower, the bailie, the donjon—five men mount each guard, and the rest must sleep for the most part in their clothes. To send away another man, were to harass the sentinels to death—unthrifty misuse for a household. To take in new soldiers were dangerous, the charge requiring tried men. I see but one thing for it—I will do your errand to Sir William ...
— The Abbot • Sir Walter Scott

... only from bad arrangement, but also from other causes—from the misuse of single words, and from confused thought. These causes are not removable by definite rules, and therefore, though not neglected, are not prominently considered in this book. My object rather is to point out some few continually recurring causes ...
— How to Write Clearly - Rules and Exercises on English Composition • Edwin A. Abbott

... nevertheless, no one is responsible but himself, says the Sporting Goods Dealer. Gun barrels can only burst by having some obstruction in the barrel or by overloading with powder. Any gun barrel can be burst by misuse or by carelessly loading smokeless powder, but no barrel will burst by using factory loaded ammunition, provided there is no obstruction or foreign substance inside the barrel. When a gun barrel bursts at the breech or chamber, it is caused by an overloaded ...
— The Boy Mechanic: Volume 1 - 700 Things For Boys To Do • Popular Mechanics

... perhaps the strongest of selling aids; but manufacturers and dealers alike are beginning to realize that they have an element of danger. Thus, the confetti test for vacuum cleaners was an unfortunate misuse of the machine. It has never convinced the woman purchaser that it would accomplish the more trying task of removing "grimed-in" soil, even while it fascinated her as a spectator and even while she left as a purchaser. She doubted her own machine ...
— The Consumer Viewpoint • Mildred Maddocks

... gross toper he was! He had learned, or in a moment of intuition guessed—all. The power of Basterga, that power over the girl which had so much puzzled and perplexed him, was his also now, to use or misuse, ...
— The Long Night • Stanley Weyman

... Indignation, and said: "Do not whip Shooba, any more. 'T is Monstrous, to Whip an old man that hath a Spiritt! 'T is not true he makes dissentions and plots Revolt among the slaves. 'T is not true he is lazy & will not Work. There is no better Workman than Shooba. 'T is only true you are a cruel man and misuse your Power." ...
— A Woman Named Smith • Marie Conway Oemler

... of eloquence, this woman who so cruelly betrayed her trust. She talked well, and the most subtle and clever of arguments came to her naturally. Her words had with them a charm and force that the young could not resist. Let those who misuse such talents remember they must answer to the Most High God for them. Adelaide Lyster used hers to betray a trust, that ought to have been held most sacred. She cared little how she influenced Marion's mind. She cared little what false notions, what false philosophy, what wrong ...
— Marion Arleigh's Penance - Everyday Life Library No. 5 • Charlotte M. Braeme

... little to any one who wants to get to the bottom of things. Neither does it explain the bulk of the facts of the "new zoopsychology." Neither do I forget that in this field also (as in every field of psychological experiments) there may be an interfering although subconscious misuse of spurious factors, such as signs (not intentional or perceptible) by the experimenter to the subject experimented with; a certain amount of falsification in interpretation of results on the part of the experimenters, etc.... But the irreducible residue of the ...
— Lola - The Thought and Speech of Animals • Henny Kindermann

... thing: 'It's too cloudy to ascend the "Old Man;"' but as soon as it was found that if it was too cloudy we did not intend to stay, it cleared off amazingly fast, and the ponies were ordered. I thought at first of walking up, but, having a value for my feet and not liking to misuse them, I mounted a ...
— Maria Mitchell: Life, Letters, and Journals • Maria Mitchell

... doubt the existence of moving atoms, invisible corpuscles. This is the mental poverty into which the enemies of religious faith unwittingly fall. They pervert that instrument of reason whose true use is to supplement and fortify imperfect intelligence, and misuse it to discredit and overthrow the original intuitions ...
— Delsarte System of Oratory • Various

... denied as mere exceptions to a rule. Without alleging that at the moment we have a Shakespeare, a Garrick or a Siddons, I assert confidently that we own dramatists and players able, if rightly used, to make our theatre worthy of our country and also that the misuse of them is appalling. For very many years the history of the English stage has been chiefly a record of waste, of gross commercialism and of honest efforts ruined by adherence to mischievous traditions: the Scottish ...
— Our Stage and Its Critics • "E.F.S." of "The Westminster Gazette"

... security of critical infrastructure or protected systems— (A) actual, potential, or threatened interference with, attack on, compromise of, or incapacitation of critical infrastructure or protected systems by either physical or computer-based attack or other similar conduct (including the misuse of or unauthorized access to all types of communications and data transmission systems) that violates Federal, State, or local law, harms interstate commerce of the United States, or threatens public health or safety; (B) the ability ...
— Homeland Security Act of 2002 - Updated Through October 14, 2008 • Committee on Homeland Security, U.S. House of Representatives

... style—and he was determined to make her walk to the end. She felt sorry for his ideas—she thought of them in the light of his striking energy; they were an idle exercise of a force intrinsically fine, and she wanted to protest, to let him know how truly it was a sad misuse of his free bold spirit to count on her. She was not to be counted on; she was a vague soft negative being who had never decided anything and never would, who had not even the merit of knowing how to flirt and who only asked to be let alone. She made him stop at last, telling him, while she leaned ...
— The Reverberator • Henry James

... wiring fuses are in good order. Pennies behind burned-out fuses are a misuse of good money in more ways ...
— If You're Going to Live in the Country • Thomas H. Ormsbee and Richmond Huntley

... time, however, total exports rose by an average of roughly 15% per year from 2003-07, largely because of higher international oil and gas prices. Overall prospects in the near future are discouraging because of widespread internal poverty, a poor educational system, government misuse of oil and gas revenues, and Ashgabat's reluctance to adopt market-oriented reforms. In the past, Turkmenistan's economic statistics were state secrets. The new government has established a State Agency for Statistics, ...
— The 2008 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.

... without permission of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). The official seal of the CIA, however, may NOT be copied without permission as required by the CIA Act of 1949 (50 U.S.C. section 403m). Misuse of the official seal of the CIA could result in civil ...
— The 2008 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.

... evil though it be, is, after all, but the exceptive case, a casual misdirection of properties and powers essentially good. God has given us the tendencies for a benevolent purpose. He has only not laid down any absolute obstruction to our misuse of them. That were an arrangement of a kind which he has nowhere made. But he has established many laws in our nature which tend to lessen the frequency and destructiveness of these abuses. Our reason comes to see that war is purely an evil, even to the conqueror. ...
— Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation • Robert Chambers

... and not to Carnac Grier, what will his mind be about you? Is it money? He has no money except what he earns. His father left him nothing—not a dollar. Why do you hate him so? I've known him all my life, and I've never known him hurt man or animal. When did he ever misuse you, or hurt you? Did he ever treat you badly? How did you come to know ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... justify (forsooth!) the punishing of amusements thought harmless by a great majority everywhere. Such an assertion is not the less silly, even in the mouth of a disciple of John Stuart Mill. Of course we all know that Law cannot be made against every misuse of time, or of energy, or of money. There is certainly no danger whatever that a modern Parliament, elected from very different circles and representing widely different elements, will ever adopt as its measure of sound morals ...
— Memoir and Letters of Francis W. Newman • Giberne Sieveking

... painful; his features assumed a serious air, and he could not forbear secretly sighing—'Perhaps I shall some time look back to these moments, as to the summit of my happiness, with hopeless regret. But let me not misuse them by useless anticipation; let me hope I shall not live to mourn the loss of those who are dearer to ...
— The Mysteries of Udolpho • Ann Radcliffe

... next, or third pit (Canto xix.), we again find fire as the instrument with which the sinners are punished. Those who have made money by misuse of sacred offices are buried head downwards in holes with their feet projecting, and fire plays about their soles. Naturally an opportunity is here presented for some strong invective against the recent unworthy occupants of the See ...
— Dante: His Times and His Work • Arthur John Butler

... L'Allegro and Il Penseroso), proceeds to invent a genealogy for Comus. The mask is designed to celebrate the victory of Purity and Reason over Desire and Enchantment. Comus, who represents the latter, must therefore spring from parents representing the pleasure of man's lower nature and the misuse of man's higher powers on behalf of falsehood and impurity. These parents are the wine-god Bacchus and the sorceress Circe. The former, mated with Love, is the father of Mirth (see L'Allegro); but, mated with the cunning Circe, his offspring ...
— Milton's Comus • John Milton

... afterwards use it without varying from it, not even stretching out the finger without it? For this, I think, is that which when it is discovered cures of their madness those who use mere "seeming" as a measure, and misuse it; so that for the future proceeding from certain things (principles) known and made clear we may use in the case of particular things the preconceptions which ...
— A Selection from the Discourses of Epictetus With the Encheiridion • Epictetus

... sometimes called dry, but this is a misuse of terms. To draw an analogy from another sense, we might rejoin that the best champagne is "sec," all the superfluous, cloying sugar being removed. There is plenty of saccharine music in the world for those who like it. In Brahms, however, we find a potential energy and a manly tenderness ...
— Music: An Art and a Language • Walter Raymond Spalding

... if he had pleased; but he desired no seat except in the saddle, or on the driving-box. He showed such skill in riding, and with "the ribbons," that some persons supposed that his talents must be very considerable in other matters, and affected to regret their misuse; there were reports that he knew Latin better than his own chaplain; and was, or had been, so diligent a student of Holy Writ, that he could give you chapter and verse for every thing. But it must be allowed ...
— Bred in the Bone • James Payn

... time, as all stages of evolution overlap, it is inevitable that some hint of these possibilities should be already in your world. Woe be to those who misuse them! ...
— Seen and Unseen • E. Katharine Bates

... nomenclature that the word "devolution" has to Irish ears come to mean something similar in kind to "Federal" Home Rule, but less in degree, and something different in kind from "Colonial" Home Rule, and infinitely less in degree. What a tangle of truth and fallacy from the misuse of a single word! It is associated rightly with the ill-starred Irish Council Bill of 1907, and it has been universally but wrongly used to indicate a small measure of local government in contradistinction to the Home Rule Bills of Mr. Gladstone ...
— The Framework of Home Rule • Erskine Childers

... their pure and cool fragrance, clasping my knees, I hum my lays. In the whole world, methinks, none see the light as peerless as these flowers. From all I see you have no other friend more intimate than me. Such autumn splendour, I must not misuse, as steadily it fleets. My gaze I fix on you as I am ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin

... are beginning to understand that this instinct of sex which has been so great a cause of suffering and shame and has been treated as a subject fit only for furtive whispers or silly jokes, is in fact one of the greatest powers in human nature, and that its misuse is indeed "the expense of spirit in ...
— Sex And Common-Sense • A. Maude Royden

... without the historic sense, he will be apt to restore not really obsolete or really worn-out words, but the finer edge of words still in use: ascertain, communicate, discover—words like these it has been part of our "business" to misuse. And still, as language was made for man, he will be no authority for correctnesses which, limiting freedom of utterance, were yet but accidents in their origin; as if one vowed not to say "its," which ought to have been in Shakespeare; "his" "hers," for inanimate objects, being but ...
— Appreciations, with an Essay on Style • Walter Horatio Pater

... ornament to these qualities, and as a protection to the republic. Wherefore, in my opinion at least, men ought not the less to devote themselves to eloquence, although some men both in private and public affairs misuse it in a perverse manner; but I think rather that they should apply themselves to it with the more eagerness, in order to prevent wicked men from getting the greatest power to the exceeding injury of the good, and the common calamity ...
— The Orations of Marcus Tullius Cicero, Volume 4 • Cicero

... eternity "unhouseled, unaneled," as though momentary acts can make up for years wasted and misspent. As well might one scatter one's fortune in luxury and riotous living, and resolve to win it all back in a moment, as misuse these glorious powers of mind and will we bear within us, turn them to evil, steep them in iniquity, and then think to suddenly turn and by a single act bend them successfully to the arduous service of the good. This is stern teaching, but it is the truth; and a mercy would it be, a mercy ...
— Morality as a Religion - An exposition of some first principles • W. R. Washington Sullivan

... idiot simile must have been merely the misuse of language so common among the half-educated youth ...
— The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne • William J. Locke

... Ministry, and its effect upon the condition of the country; and said that public distress had been aggravated by continual shocks from neglected legislation at home, "while abroad they had strained the prerogative by gross misuse, had weakened the Empire by needless wars, and dishonored it in the eyes of Europe by their clandestine acquisition ...
— The Grand Old Man • Richard B. Cook

... remember that more than once, Prince, when you and I have met with the odds in your favour the victory has been mine. Play the game fairly, and you have nothing to fear from me but the open opposition I have promised you. Bring but the shadow of evil upon her, misuse your power but ever so slightly against her, and I warn you that I shall count the few years of life left to me a trifle—of less than no account—until you and ...
— The Yellow Crayon • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... the pirates, called the quartermaster, of the men's own choosing, who claims all authority this way, excepting in time of battle. If they disobey his command, are quarrelsome and mutinous with one another, misuse prisoners, plunder beyond his order, and in particular, if they be negligent of their arms, which he musters at discretion, he punishes at his own arbitrament, with drubbing or whipping, which no one else dare do without incurring the lash from all the ship's company. ...
— Great Pirate Stories • Various

... still, my children, and so it will be to the end. In those old Greeks, and in us also, all strength and virtue come from God. But if men grow proud and self-willed, and misuse God's fair gifts, He lets them go their own ways, and fall pitifully, that the glory may be His alone. God help us all, and give us wisdom, and courage to do noble deeds! but God keep pride from us when we have done them, lest we ...
— Types of Children's Literature • Edited by Walter Barnes

... to himself. Among the various plausible reasons which were urged against the continued existence of the conventual houses, one of the most likely to appeal to the practical sense of the multitude was the misuse of the resources with which they had been endowed. While it was admitted that in their earlier days they had been extremely useful in mitigating distress among the poor, it was now argued that their indiscriminate ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Priory Church of St. Bartholomew-the-Great, Smithfield • George Worley

... mistakes. With the household virtues of cleanliness, order, simplicity, and economy she united large-hearted compassion toward those needing help of any kind, yet knowing withal how, with virile sense and energy, to prevent the misuse of ministering love. She became a model for the deaconesses, as well as a mother to them, and her name deserves to be mentioned with honor, as one who had an important part in the Protestant renewal of the diaconate ...
— Deaconesses in Europe - and their Lessons for America • Jane M. Bancroft

... machinery. You might as well borrow 100,000 lathes as $100,000 if the trouble is inside your business. More lathes will not cure it; neither will more money. Only heavier doses of brains and thought and wise courage can cure. A business that misuses what it has will continue to misuse what it can get. The point is—cure the misuse. When that is done, the business will begin to make its own money, just as a repaired human body begins to make ...
— My Life and Work • Henry Ford

... thought that he might be rushing into some unknown danger, and intrusting himself to those who would misuse his confidence. He demanded to see their faces, declaring himself prepared to follow, when acquainted with ...
— Old Fritz and the New Era • Louise Muhlbach

... by themselves under the name of the House of Commons. They asserted their right to assent to legislation, and (1376) they exercised hte right of impeaching before the House of Lords government officers guilty of misuse of power. Somewhat later (1407) they obtained the sole right to originate "Money Bills," that is, grants or appropriations of money for public purposes or for ...
— The Leading Facts of English History • D.H. Montgomery

... been said again and again in this book, our sexual nature is a gift from God, with glorious possibilities in it of enriching experience. That is why it is so very important not to misuse it. ...
— Men, Women, and God • A. Herbert Gray

... Its negotiation was so permeated by fraud that the Indians refused to let it stand [Dole to Smith, January 15, 1862]. At this time, 1863, Superintendent Branch, against whom charges of gambling, drunkenness, licentiousness, and misuse of annuity funds had been preferred by Agent Ross [Indian Office General Files, Pottawatomie, R 21 and 143 of 1863], was endeavoring to persuade Father De Smet to establish a Roman Catholic Mission on their Reserve. De Smet declined because of the exigencies of the war. His ...
— The American Indian as Participant in the Civil War • Annie Heloise Abel

... also in danger in the war area, as owing to the secret order issued by the British Admiralty January 31st, 1915, regarding the misuse of neutral flags, and the chances of naval warfare, it can happen that attacks directed against enemy ...
— Germany, The Next Republic? • Carl W. Ackerman

... of her? Does her mother, the victim of misinformation and no information, of misuse and self-mutilation, in the sweet privacy of this home, which is called the cradle of peace and the nestling place of purity, save her by taking warning of her own ruined life and giving her the benefit of such little knowledge as she has gained in physical, ...
— Mother Earth, Vol. 1 No. 2, April 1906 - Monthly Magazine Devoted to Social Science and Literature • Various

... be, my daughter," returned Mrs. Manvers, "for even in small things, we should use our gifts as not abusing them; but what will you say when I tell you that you possess a treasure of inestimable value, which you often misuse sadly, and neglect most heedlessly,—a gift that properly employed will procure wonderful privileges, but which I sometimes fear you will never learn to value until you are about to lose ...
— Mrs Whittelsey's Magazine for Mothers and Daughters - Volume 3 • Various

... Memorabilia, a portion of Livy's History, and Horace's Epistles. To do so would be both long and tedious. The circumstances have, however, a certain interest considered from one point of view, and that is the use and misuse of ...
— The Adventure of Living • John St. Loe Strachey

... first sacred teachers, to whom we give the name of buddhas—which means, learned men or saints—because the great Creator has incarnated in them, settled in different countries of the globe. As their teachings attacked especially the tyranny of the Brahmins and the misuse they made of the idea of God—of which they indeed made a veritable business—almost all the Buddhistic converts, they who followed the doctrines of those great teachers, were among the common people of China and India. ...
— The Unknown Life of Jesus Christ - The Original Text of Nicolas Notovitch's 1887 Discovery • Nicolas Notovitch

... perhaps most of all applied to our behaviour in matters of sexual morality, and here with specially flagrant misuse. Multitudes of Englishmen have thrown aside the national religious dogma, but very few indeed have abandoned the conviction that the rules of morality publicly upheld in England are the best known in the world. Any one interested in doing so can but too easily demonstrate that English social ...
— The Private Papers of Henry Ryecroft • George Gissing

... realising of the practical ends of life. Once again it must be noted that in the establishment of the various systems of knowledge the one activity ever present is that of reason seeking ever to connect part to part in order that some end or interest may be attained. Moreover, we may misuse the power of reason, and employ it in the attainment of ends which are valueless in the sense that they further no real interest or end in life. This is done whenever knowledge is crammed, whenever the bond of connection between one part of knowledge and the other is extrinsic, ...
— The Children: Some Educational Problems • Alexander Darroch

... parent, the teacher, will treasure it as a safe guide in the performance of duties too often little understood. If it is hard to learn to obey, still harder is it to learn how to govern. The perusal of 'THE GOLDEN RULE' will do much towards avoiding the misuse of the 'brief authority' with ...
— Public School Education • Michael Mueller

... a misuse of the word? A man who has gained and kept such a love can never be called a failure by any one who understands the true proportions of life. With all his monetary losses he is rich... And she is rich ...
— Big Game - A Story for Girls • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey

... command must suffer. Let us see how it works. Bishop Vincent says: 'Sunday is ill-spent if it sends us back to our weekly work irritated, weary and reluctant'—and Sunday will never do that for us unless we misuse the day which God has given us. If we spend the day in worrying about our everyday affairs, if we spend it in chasing around after senseless amusements which weary the body without enlightening the heart ...
— Crayon and Character: Truth Made Clear Through Eye and Ear - Or, Ten-Minute Talks with Colored Chalks • B.J. Griswold

... clergy, therefore, endeavored, by all possible means, to extirpate its use, and this is one cause, hitherto overlooked, of the hatred with which the Indians regarded the Spaniards. In the second council held at Lima, in 1567, coca was described "as a worthless object, fitted for the misuse and superstition of the Indians;" and a royal decree of October 18, 1569, expressly declares that the notions entertained by the natives that coca gives them strength, is an "illusion of the devil" (una elusion del Demonio). The Peruvian mine owners were the first to discover the importance ...
— Travels in Peru, on the Coast, in the Sierra, Across the Cordilleras and the Andes, into the Primeval Forests • J. J. von Tschudi

... FBI identification records are for the OFFICIAL use of law enforcement and governmental agencies and misuse of such records by disseminating them to unauthorized persons may result in cancellation ...
— The Science of Fingerprints - Classification and Uses • Federal Bureau of Investigation

... to think, to misuse the Divine gift of artistic inspiration. The poet may devote his genius to animalism, like Byron, or to teach immoral license, like Swinburne; the painter may crowd his canvas with degrading ideas and vulgar representations, and the artificer may be ingenious in the production ...
— Men of the Bible; Some Lesser-Known Characters • George Milligan, J. G. Greenhough, Alfred Rowland, Walter F.

... gone before another comes, is impossible. The result of such a blending would be a being which, in stead of shining with the single ray of a soul on earth, would blaze from a hundred facets simultaneously. The word 'individual,' as applied here on earth, is a misuse of language. It is absurd to call that an individual which every hour divides. The, earthly stage of human life is so small that there is room for but one of the persons of an individual upon it at one ...
— Miss Ludington's Sister • Edward Bellamy

... are you going to say? I see it in your face. But it is of no use. The people who had their securities in the bank should have got them all back again—every farthing. No; I tell you the most infamous crime a man can commit is to misuse a friend's letters; to publish to all the world what has been confided to him alone, in the closest secrecy, like a whisper in an empty, dark, double-locked room. The man who can do such things is infected and poisoned in every fibre with the morals of the higher rascality. ...
— John Gabriel Borkman • Henrik Ibsen

... automobile, and the rise of "elaborately organized conspiracies for the theft of automobiles * * *, and their sale or other disposition" in another police jurisdiction from the owner's. This, the opinion declared, "is a gross misuse of interstate commerce. Congress may properly punish such interstate transportation by anyone with knowledge of the theft, because of its harmful result and its defeat of the property rights of those whose machines against their will are taken into ...
— The Constitution of the United States of America: Analysis and Interpretation • Edward Corwin

... vessels. If neutral vessels have come to grief through the German submarine war during the past few months by mistake, it is a question of isolated and exceptional cases which are traceable to the misuse of flags by the British Government in connection with carelessness or suspicious actions on the part of the captains of the vessels. In all cases where a neutral vessel through no fault of its own has come to grief through the German submarines ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 4, July, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various

... kings had begun to misuse the Jews, they had grown weak and miserable. Antiochus Eupator was dethroned and murdered by his cousin Demetrius; but shortly after, a man named Balas came forward, calling himself the son of Antiochus Epiphanes, and begging Jonathan to take his part, sending ...
— The Chosen People - A Compendium Of Sacred And Church History For School-Children • Charlotte Mary Yonge

... broken, it could only be done by the authority and power of the local sovereign. Lastly, and apart from all this, the new Church system was threatened with imminent disturbance and dissolution from the insufficiency or misuse of the funds required for its support. The customary revenues were falling off; payments were no longer made for private masses; and many of the nobles, including even those who remained attached to the old system, began to secularise ...
— Life of Luther • Julius Koestlin

... opposers, you will not excite public opinion yet more against me, and render it more favorably disposed to the Electoral Prince! If we now forcibly restrain these testimonials of pleasure on the part of the people, then will it be said that I misuse my power and am jealous of the Electoral Prince; that I am seeking to thrust him aside from his exalted position. If, on the other hand, it is seen how joyfully I acquiesce in the Electoral Prince's reception ...
— The Youth of the Great Elector • L. Muhlbach

... she used English very graphically, but with curious misuse of pronouns and a few other words. Considering the fact that her family spoke a foreign language at home and she had been but a short time in school this was not strange. Her lack of veracity was shown even in her assertions about her inability to understand ...
— Pathology of Lying, Etc. • William and Mary Healy

... by one man it was said "that the danger is as great with respect to the Senate, who are assembled from various parts of the continent, with different impressions and opinions;" "that such a body is more likely to misuse the power of removal than the man whom the united voice of America calls to the Presidential chair. As the nature of government requires the power of removal," it was maintained "that it should be exercised in this ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 2 (of 2) of Volume 6: Andrew Johnson • James D. Richardson

... us a great number of comic slip-slops, of the first Lord Baltimore, who made a constant misuse of one word for another: for instance, "I have been," says he, "upon a little excoriation to see a ship lanced; and there is not a finer going vessel upon the face of God's earth: you've no idiom how well it ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madam D'Arblay Volume 2 • Madame D'Arblay

... mother and me," gloomily laughed Ebbo, "to lose thee, my sublimated self, for a rude, savage lord, who would straightway undo all our work, and rate and misuse our sweet mother for being ...
— The Dove in the Eagle's Nest • Charlotte M. Yonge

... distance from ordinary medical prac- tice to Christian Science is full many a league in the line of light; but to go in healing from the use of 106:1 inanimate drugs to the criminal misuse of human will- power, is to drop from the platform of common manhood 106:3 into the very mire of iniquity, to work against the free course of honesty and justice, and to push vainly ...
— Science and Health With Key to the Scriptures • Mary Baker Eddy

... you may be, and suffer not yourselves to be deceived by a most infamous impostor! I am called Omar, and let no mortal venture to misuse my name!" ...
— The Oriental Story Book - A Collection of Tales • Wilhelm Hauff

... will dare to stand up against a majority, the habit of constantly, and, as it were instinctively postponing self to the public interest, and this whether arising from moral choice or from the constraint imposed by public opinion; these are the balancing qualities which prevent the misuse of political freedom." ...
— A Source Book Of Australian History • Compiled by Gwendolen H. Swinburne

... the security of the Lower Mississippi as are those who dwell on its very banks in Louisiana; and now that the nation has recovered its possession, this generation of men will make a fearful mistake if they again commit its charge to a people liable to misuse their position, and assert, as was recently done, that, because they dwelt on the banks of this mighty stream, they had a right to ...
— The Memoirs of General W. T. Sherman, Complete • William T. Sherman

... cried. "Back, Weathercote Charles, put a leash on Talbot, and hold Bayard back!" Her black eyes blazed upon the invaders until they shrank from that baleful gaze. "Who are you, you rascal robbers, who dare to misuse the King's name and to lay hands upon one whose smallest drop of blood has more worth than all your thrall ...
— Sir Nigel • Arthur Conan Doyle

... dozing through long convalescent hours many things hitherto obscure to me became clear, and it seems now to me to be clearly wrong to withhold our sympathy from any side of life. It seems to me that it is only by our sympathy we can do any good at all. God gave us our human nature; we may misuse and degrade our nature, but we must never forget that it came ...
— The Lake • George Moore

... viper!" says Joe, shaking him still. "You'll misuse the little lad before my face, will you? And squeal like a pig to be let go, ...
— Humphrey Bold - A Story of the Times of Benbow • Herbert Strang

... political and social leaders, and all who have to win the loyalties and support of masses of men have appreciated the use—and misuse—that might be made of the emotional fringes of words. Words are not always used as direct and transparent representations of ideas; they are as frequently used as stimuli to action. A familiar instance is seen in the use ...
— Human Traits and their Social Significance • Irwin Edman

... relate my life to it. I can make the heat and the cold serve me, the winds and the floods, gravity and all the chemical and dynamical forces, serve me, if I take hold of them by the right handle. The bad in things arises from our abuse or misuse of them or from our wrong relations to them. A thing is good or bad according as it stands related to my constitution. We say the order of nature is rational; but is it not because our reason is the outcome of that order? Our well-being consists in learning it and in adjusting our lives ...
— Time and Change • John Burroughs

... round of worldly amusements. People attended the festival services of the church and spent the remainder of the season in a whirl of secular and far from innocent pleasures. With his Pietistic views Brorson naturally deplored such a misuse of the season. And his first hymn, therefore, sounds an earnest call to cease these unseemly pleasures and to use the ...
— Hymns and Hymnwriters of Denmark • Jens Christian Aaberg

... misfortune to be under their jurisdiction. The higher dignitaries have at least larger aims and a certain consciousness of the dignity of their position; but the lower officials, who have no such healthy restraints and receive ridiculously small salaries, grossly misuse the little authority which they possess, and habitually pilfer and extort in the most shameless manner. The Consistories are, in fact, what the public offices were in the ...
— Russia • Donald Mackenzie Wallace

... great displeasure we have learned that in our Duchy of Westphalia the misuse of the coffee beverage has become so extended that to counteract the evil we command that four weeks after the publication of this decree no one shall sell coffee roasted or not roasted under a fine of one hundred dollars, or two years ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers

... of self-defence; and as James nearly suppressed the importation of tobacco the English began to grow it on their own land. But the Scottish Solomon who was on the alert, added another law restraining its cultivation 'to misuse and misemploy the soil of this fruitful Kingdom.' As this enforced the trade with the English colony of Virginia alone, it was soon found that Spanish and Portuguese tobacco might be brought into port on the payment of the old duty of twopence a pound; ...
— Tobacco; Its History, Varieties, Culture, Manufacture and Commerce • E. R. Billings

... Christmas Eve (I supposed) she wore an evening dress of black lace, and the only word for what she looked has suffered such misuse that one hesitates over it: yet that is what she was—regal—and no less! There was a sort of splendor about her. It detracted nothing from this that her expression was a little sad: something not uncommon with her lately; a certain melancholy, faint but detectable, like breath ...
— Beasley's Christmas Party • Booth Tarkington

... that the titles, Rev., Prof, and Dr., and the degrees, M. D., D. D., LL. D., Ph. D., were carefully used by the clerks in addressing envelopes and wrappers. And I said to the manager, "Why this misuse of time and effort? The ink thus wasted should be sold and the proceeds given to the poor!" And the man replied, "To omit these titles and degrees would cost us half our subscription-list." And so I assume that man is a calculating animal, not ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great Philosophers, Volume 8 • Elbert Hubbard

... much strength, children have not even enough for all that nature demands of them. We ought, then, to leave them the free use of all natural strength which they cannot misuse. First maxim. ...
— Emile - or, Concerning Education; Extracts • Jean Jacques Rousseau

... a perfectly distinct meaning, and is not a mere redundancy. If Mr. Tucker supposes that "She was by way of painting the shrimp girl" means exactly the same as "She was painting the shrimp girl," he misses one of the fine shades of the English language. Similarly, his remark on the "peculiar misuse of the affix ever, as in saying 'Whatever are you doing?'" stands in need of reconsideration. It is wrong, certainly, to treat ever as an affix, and to mistake the first two words of "What ever are you ...
— America To-day, Observations and Reflections • William Archer

... he exclaimed, his voice tense with excitement. "Who said artist? Who called her that?" He glared fiercely about. "Let us have an end to this blatant misuse of fine old words. To say of one that he is an artist is to touch ...
— Windy McPherson's Son • Sherwood Anderson

... somewhat confused by the misuse of the word Extempore. Prior to the invention of Printing every one who had to conduct Services was required to know them by heart, so as to be able to say them without book. The fact that he used no book did not make the prayers extempore. ...
— The Prayer Book Explained • Percival Jackson

... female lunatics chiefly because the fumigatory education of the fair sex has been neglected. Yet it is important to notice that these same advocates almost outdo its opponents in admitting its liability to misuse, and the perilous consequences. "The injurious effects of excessive smoking,"—"there is no more pitiable object than the inveterate smoker,"—"sedentary life is incompatible with smoking,"—highly pernicious,—general debility,—secretions all wrong,—cerebral ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 8, No. 50, December, 1861 • Various

... Augustin's last farewell to the defender of Hippo, it was no doubt couched in language not unlike this. In any case, posterity has wished to believe that the dying bishop maintained to the end his unyielding demeanour face to face with the Barbarians. It would be a misuse of words to represent him as a patriot in the present sense of the term. It is no less true that this African, this Christian, was an admirable servant of Rome. Until his death he kept his respect for it, because in his eyes the Empire meant order, peace, civilization, the unity of faith ...
— Saint Augustin • Louis Bertrand

... marquetry, and in William and Mary's reign such things became the fashion in England. The design employed tulips and other flowers, foliage, birds, etc., all in gay colours; ivory and mother-of-pearl were used occasionally for salient points, such as eyes. Examples of the use and misuse of these materials may be seen in the Victoria and Albert ...
— Intarsia and Marquetry • F. Hamilton Jackson

... ourselves with a mere suggestion. We have, in the first place to keep our hold of the fact, disregarding all pleas to the contrary, that sin is a reality, and not a phantasm of our imagination; we shall then diagnose its nature as the misuse, the unfaithful administration, of the power which God has conferred upon us for employment in His holy service; and then, {33} lastly, we shall grow aware that the very pain, the sense of unhappiness and moral discord by which the consciousness of guilt is ever accompanied, ...
— Problems of Immanence - Studies Critical and Constructive • J. Warschauer

... efforts of hand and eye, for it is the mind at last that directs all our energies. The development of brain and body go together—manual work is brain-work. Too much brain-work is just as bad as too much toil; the misuse of the pen carries just as severe a penalty as the misuse of the hoe. And it is a great satisfaction to realize that the thinking world has reached a point where these propositions do not have ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 12 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Scientists • Elbert Hubbard

... 'good and evil' refers to the cosmic dualistic compulsion. Falling under the sway of MAYA through misuse of his feeling and reason, or Eve-and Adam-consciousness, man relinquishes his right to enter the heavenly garden of divine self-sufficiency. {FN16-19} The personal responsibility of every human being is to restore his 'parents' or dual nature to ...
— Autobiography of a YOGI • Paramhansa Yogananda

... Though, look you, Gwyllem, I would speak naught save commendation of these delicate and livelily-tinted creatures so long as one is able to approach them in a becoming spirit of levity: it is only their not infrequent misuse which I would condemn; and in my opinion the person who elects to build a shrine for any one of them has only himself to blame if his chosen goddess will accept no burnt-offering except his honor and happiness. Yet since time's ...
— Chivalry • James Branch Cabell

... "The squeak you heard was probably the protest of the bed you were reclining on against such a misuse of the opportunities it offered you. A dream listened to as evidence in this office! You must have a woman's idea of ...
— Dark Hollow • Anna Katharine Green

... passed on; but angered that he should be defied by so few men, he determined to capture them and it delayed him twenty-four precious hours. So enraged were his men over what they considered the obstinacy of the brave little band, that they began to misuse the prisoners, but Morgan stopped them, saying: "The damned Yankees ought to be complimented ...
— Raiding with Morgan • Byron A. Dunn

... a righteous word has been spoken, none surely would rebuke another with hard speech and be angry. Misuse ye not this stranger, neither any of the thralls that are in the house of godlike Odysseus. But come, let the wine-bearer pour for libation into each cup in turn, that after the drink-offering we may get us home to bed. But the stranger let us leave in the halls of Odysseus ...
— DONE INTO ENGLISH PROSE • S. H. BUTCHER, M.A.

... to misuse the prince, to vex Claudio, to undo Hero, and kill Leonato: look you for ...
— Much Ado About Nothing • William Shakespeare [Knight edition]

... persons are not satisfied with any of the accepted practices; as if a new world could be built of a sudden. There will always be things which the pious must endure. If anyone thinks that Mass ought to be abolished because many misuse it, then the Sermon should be abolished also, which is almost the only custom accepted by your party. I feel the same about the invocation of the saints and ...
— Erasmus and the Age of Reformation • Johan Huizinga

... of a bargain for the security of their possessions. Austere faces, inexorable discipline, penance in this world and terror in the next—nothing graceful or gentle anywhere, and the void in my cowed heart everywhere—this was my childhood, if I may so misuse the word as to apply it to such ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens

... and presence of mind bore him out. "What mean ye, my masters?" he said; "if that be your friend's body, I have just now cut him down, in pure charity, and you will do better to try to recover his life, than to misuse an innocent stranger to whom he owes ...
— Quentin Durward • Sir Walter Scott

... ordinary public oppression, where the vitals of the constitution are not attacked, the law hath also assigned a remedy. For, as a king cannot misuse his power, without the advice of evil counsellors, and the assistance of wicked ministers, these men may be examined and punished. The constitution has therefore provided, by means of indictments, and parliamentary impeachments, that ...
— Commentaries on the Laws of England - Book the First • William Blackstone

... delusion. I am not one of the feeble lambs whom you have beguiled by the misuse of your gifts and advantages; and who then are eager to kiss your hands. I am the daughter of Thomas; and another woman's betrothed, who craves my embraces on the way to his wedding, will learn to his rueing that there are women who scorn his disgraceful suit and can avenge ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... young man, that you confess to the true and only source of all help. You Christians, as you call yourselves, have ever seemed to me unwilling to mention the name of God save when cursing your fellows, and then you misuse it glibly enough. Yet there are some among you who are more consistent in their professions. Go, fulfil your commission. I ...
— The Middy and the Moors - An Algerine Story • R.M. Ballantyne

... myself up and went and sat down on the bench outside the sheds to think what I ought to do. I knew, as well as I know now, that Lawrence was runnin' away, and I had drove him to it. But I swear, sir, before my Colonel and my God, that I didn't mean to make Lawrence mad, or misuse him in any way. You know my ...
— Betty at Fort Blizzard • Molly Elliot Seawell

... by the delegation of the society, the declaring of the public will, are excluded from it, and others usurp the place, who have no such authority or delegation. Sec. 213. This being usually brought about by such in the commonwealth who misuse the power they have; it is hard to consider it aright, and know at whose door to lay it, without knowing the form of government in which it happens. Let us suppose then the legislative placed in the concurrence of ...
— Two Treatises of Government • John Locke

... smile, though it was a sad one, as she thought of her husband's suspicions lest she should misuse the draught on him. But her bosom heaved, and her heart beat as she continued to ...
— The Broom-Squire • S. (Sabine) Baring-Gould

... of the doctrine of progressive development, above all things, lovers of truth: and that, therefore, at whatever risk of seeming to lend support to views which they disliked, they felt it their duty to take the first opportunity of publicly repudiating Professor Owen's misuse ...
— Lectures and Essays • T.H. Huxley

... no place, however, for a discussion of the aesthetic basis of tragedy in general.[1] What is here required, from the point of view of craftsmanship, is not so much a glorification of the tragic ending, as a warning against its facile misuse. A very great play may, and often must, end in death; but you cannot make a play great by simply killing off your protagonist. Death is, after all, a very inexpensive means of avoiding anticlimax. Tension, as we saw, is symbolized in the sword of ...
— Play-Making - A Manual of Craftsmanship • William Archer

... of taxation in the province of Asia was also left untouched. But what they dared to do they did. They prosecuted the adherents of Gracchus. They recalled Popillius from exile. When Opimius was arraigned for 'perduellio,' or misuse of his official power to compass the death of a citizen, they procured his acquittal. But when Carbo was accused of the same crime, they remembered that he had been a partisan of Tiberius, though since a renegade, and would not help ...
— The Gracchi Marius and Sulla - Epochs Of Ancient History • A.H. Beesley

... to indicate the need of bringing the voice forward in the mouth. Other forms of throaty production are taken to show a lack of support, a wrong management of the breath, a need of breath-control, a misuse of nasal resonance, or an improper action of the vocal cords. In all these attempts to interpret sympathetic sensations by means of mechanical doctrines the teacher naturally relies on those doctrines in which he believes most firmly. Sympathetic ...
— The Psychology of Singing - A Rational Method of Voice Culture Based on a Scientific Analysis of All Systems, Ancient and Modern • David C. Taylor

... who would fully perform his duty must be not only incorruptible, but ever alert, for those who are trying to misuse the newspapers are able to deceive "the very elect." Whenever any movement is on foot for the securing of legislation desired by the predatory interests, or when restraining legislation is threatened, news bureaus ...
— In His Image • William Jennings Bryan

... things and for the direction of the will to moral virtue the light of grace for things supernatural, and for the direction of the will to spiritual virtue. Sin was the opposite of virtue, the choice by the will of false objects of love; it involved the misuse of reason, and the absence of grace. As the end of virtue was blessedness, so the ...
— The Divine Comedy, Volume 1, Hell [The Inferno] • Dante Alighieri



Words linked to "Misuse" :   misapply, apply, abuse, employment, expend, utilise, use, utilize, utilization, habit, drug abuse, utilisation, pervert, employ, fracture, usage, take in vain, substance abuse, exercise



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