misuse
part of speech
noun (misuse, misuses) — said mis-YOOS; verb (misuse, misuses, misused, misusing) — said mis-YOOZ
meaning for a pupil
1) Verb: to use something in a wrong, careless or harmful way. tree →
2) Noun: wrong or harmful use: misuse of medicine, misuse of power. tree →
3) Verb: to treat someone badly or unfairly (old-fashioned). tree →
sense in the lessons
In safety lessons misuse of medicines, fire alarms or emergency numbers is dangerous and sometimes against the law. In computing, misuse of passwords or someone's data is wrong. In grammar lessons you correct the misuse of words like «their» and «there».
examples
- Misuse of the fire alarm can get you into big trouble. tree →
- Don't misuse the scissors — they are for paper only. tree →
- Drug misuse harms health. tree →
- He misused the word «literally». tree →
- Calling 999 for a joke is a misuse of the emergency line. tree →
- The manager was sacked for misuse of company money. tree →
note
Noun and verb are spelled the same but said differently (-yoos vs -yooz). Compare «abuse» (stronger, often cruel) and «overuse» (too much).
In the corpora
- "Substance misuse" is the British official phrase for harmful use of drugs or alcohol.
- Inhaled steroids are not the same as the steroids some athletes misuse.
Trees and pragmatics
Every meaning and example of «misuse» parsed by Mova, each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.