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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



... change their force, and even their meaning, under our hands, and as his use and treatment of them will be logical and "legal" rather than tactful and "equitable," he will again and again misinterpret and misuse them, and will so do badly the very thing which he is expected to do well. The man who, though endowed with an acute and vigorous intellect, can neither think imaginatively nor reason tactfully, has grave ...
— What Is and What Might Be - A Study of Education in General and Elementary Education in Particular • Edmond Holmes

... 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 doing?" for the one word "whatever;" but to suppose the ...
— America To-day, Observations and Reflections • William Archer

... employer. A Liberty Bond is capital but it is not an employer; the Government is an employer but it is not capital, and when any one is arguing a case for an employee against his employer let him use the proper terms. The misuse of words can cause a miscarriage of justice as the misuse of railway signals can send a train ...
— The Iron Puddler • James J. Davis

... plain, wooden structure, capable of containing two or three hundred people. The Saint, when describing it in a letter home, said it was "a big, wooden barn with a floor to it." However, we voted this statement to be libellous, and cautioned the Saint on the misuse of terms. The Pahi Town Hall is not to be rashly designated with opprobrious epithets. Such as it is, it serves us well, by turns as chapel, court-house, music-hall, ...
— Brighter Britain! (Volume 1 of 2) - or Settler and Maori in Northern New Zealand • William Delisle Hay

... species is the most universal park deer of Europe. It seems to be invulnerable to neglect and misuse, for it has persisted through countless generations of breeding in captivity, and the abuse of all nations. In size it is a trifle smaller than our white-tailed deer, with spots in summer, and horns that are widely flattened at the extremities ...
— Our Vanishing Wild Life - Its Extermination and Preservation • William T. Hornaday

... prevents its representatives from abandoning that general line of conduct which its own interest prescribes. In the second place, it must be remembered that if the democratic magistrate is more apt to misuse his power, he possesses it for a shorter period of time. But there is yet another reason which is still more general and conclusive. It is no doubt of importance to the welfare of nations that they should be governed by men of talents and ...
— Democracy In America, Volume 1 (of 2) • Alexis de Tocqueville

... 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 ...
— A Source Book Of Australian History • Compiled by Gwendolen H. Swinburne

... lifetime. We people them with ghosts that please us, and make histories for them that are always romantic and full of happiness. The survival of an old house and its garden through centuries of use and misuse is always an impressive and dramatic discovery to us: it gives us courage to add our little bit to the ultimate beauty and history, it gives us excuse to dream of the fortunate people who will follow us in other centuries, and who will, in turn, bless us for our part in the remaking ...
— The House in Good Taste • Elsie de Wolfe

... lamps of light. O, let not the 'simplex et nuda' of Gregory be perverted to the Socinian, 'plain and easy for the meanest understandings!' The truth in Christ, like the peace of Christ, passeth all understanding. If ever there was a mischievous misuse of words, the confusion of the terms, 'reason' and 'understanding,' 'ideas' and 'notions,' or 'conceptions,' is most mischievous; a Surinam toad with a swarm of toadlings sprouting out of ...
— The Literary Remains Of Samuel Taylor Coleridge • Edited By Henry Nelson Coleridge

... the injuries for which corsets are responsible result from their misuse. Naturally serious consequences may be expected if they are worn with the design of compressing the abdomen so as to render pregnancy less noticeable or perhaps to conceal it altogether. Thus worn, the corset becomes not only an instrument of torture but a ...
— The Prospective Mother - A Handbook for Women During Pregnancy • J. Morris Slemons

... meaning the sea, which is hard to passe with an army of reuenge. The Embassadour was commanded away & no more hard by the Emperor, til by some other means afterward the grief was either pacified or forgotten, & all this inconuenience grew by misuse of one word, which being otherwise spoken & in some sort qualified, had easily holpen all, & yet th'Embassadour might sufficiently haue satisfied his commission & much better aduaunced his purpose, as to haue said for this word [ye are ingrate,] ye haue not vsed such ...
— The Arte of English Poesie • George Puttenham

... defended the general policy of the expedition, and I again have Mr. Gladstone's notes for his reply to Sir Wilfrid Lawson, in which he again asserted that the supporters of Arabi Pasha were not only rebels, but criminals as well, accusing them of misuse of a flag of truce, and of deliberately setting fire to the town ...
— The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke V1 • Stephen Gwynn

... such hammers, saws, and what else I might need in doing some carpentry work I had planned. The tool-chest is kept in the granary; both it and the granary are usually kept locked. Now the "gude mon" has an idea that a "wooman" needs no tools, and the use and misuse of his tools have led to numbers of inter-household wars. I was gloating over my opportunity, and also making the best of it, when a medley of burring Scotch voices brought me to a quick realization that discretion is the better part of valor. So I went into seclusion ...
— Letters of a Woman Homesteader • Elinore Pruitt Stewart

... Monsieur Frederic Larsan, much graver than the misuse of logic the disposition of mind in some detectives which makes them, in perfect good faith, twist logic to the necessities of their preconceived ideas. You, already, have your idea about the murderer, Monsieur Fred. Don't deny it; and your theory demands that the ...
— The Mystery of the Yellow Room • Gaston Leroux

... a benevolent enthusiast like Charles; but it is not advisable to set food in great quantities before a starving man, lest he eat himself into a surfeit. Ignorance is always in danger of using power very ill, since we see that even the enlightened are frequently prone to misuse it." ...
— The Barbadoes Girl - A Tale for Young People • Mrs. Hofland

... understanding rules borrowed from other minds, yet the power of employing these rules correctly must belong to the pupil himself; and no rule which we can prescribe to him with this purpose is, in the absence or deficiency of this gift of nature, secure from misuse.* A physician therefore, a judge or a statesman, may have in his head many admirable pathological, juridical, or political rules, in a degree that may enable him to be a profound teacher in his particular science, and yet in the application of these rules he may very possibly blunder—either because ...
— The Critique of Pure Reason • Immanuel Kant

... design that can be used for a spectacular demonstration have been up to this time 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 ...
— The Consumer Viewpoint • Mildred Maddocks

... tenant of a small holding in Mayo with an English farmer—properly so called. The latter is a man engaged in a large business, and must possess, or, as I regret to be obliged to write, have been possessed of capital. The misuse of the word farmer and its application to the little peasant cultivators here can only lead to confusion. The proper standard of comparison with the so-called Mayo farmer is the English farmer's labourer. In education, in knowledge ...
— Disturbed Ireland - Being the Letters Written During the Winter of 1880-81. • Bernard H. Becker

... nevertheless a disorder. As physical disease entails a diminution of physical life, so sin entails a diminution of {162} our moral and spiritual life, an alienation of the soul from God; and while anyone may thus choose to describe sin—the wilful misuse of faculties lent us for other ends—as natural, it is significant that the result of sin is quite unnatural, viz., a state of disunion between the soul and God. So much is this the case that the aim of all religion ...
— Problems of Immanence - Studies Critical and Constructive • J. Warschauer

... by their consummate virtue and eloquence, which might serve as an 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

... self, the head of all evils, surpasses other loves in the ability to adulterate goods and falsify truths, and it does this by misuse of the rationality which every man, wicked as well as good, enjoys from the Lord. By confirmations it can in fact make evil look exactly like good and falsity like truth. What can it not do when it can prove ...
— Angelic Wisdom about Divine Providence • Emanuel Swedenborg

... 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 ...
— Music: An Art and a Language • Walter Raymond Spalding

... emphasized that 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 of ...
— The Science of Fingerprints - Classification and Uses • Federal Bureau of Investigation

... our benefits at random rather than bestow them. It is hard to say whether it is more dishonourable for the receiver to disown a benefit, or for the giver to demand a return of it: for a benefit is a loan, the repayment of which depends merely upon the good feeling of the debtor. To misuse a benefit like a spendthrift is most shameful, because we do not need our wealth but only our intention to set us free from the obligation of it; for a benefit is repaid by being acknowledged. Yet while they are to blame ...
— L. Annaeus Seneca On Benefits • Seneca

... reclaims against this misuse of analogy. Feeling, imagination, instinct are too many for her; and any mood, from fun to earnest, from nonsense to sublimity, may hear a responsive note when this ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 378, April, 1847 • Various

... inspired Dante in the 'Divine Comedy' had its source in his sense of the wretchedness of man in this mortal life, owing to the false direction of his desires, through his ignorance and his misuse of his free will, the chief gift of God to him. The only means of rescue from this wretchedness was the exercise by man of his reason, enlightened by the divine grace, in the guidance of his life. To convince man of this truth, ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 11 • Various

... unconsciousness of the contradiction, that the people who constructed these works had only stone tools. Now to call a people "civilized" who have only stone tools is utterly misleading. Nothing but confusion of ideas and darkening of counsel can come from such a misuse of words. Such a people may be in a high degree interesting and entitled to credit for what they have achieved, but the grade of culture which they ...
— The Discovery of America Vol. 1 (of 2) - with some account of Ancient America and the Spanish Conquest • John Fiske

... treatment this word has received is to be specially regretted, as its misuse has well-nigh robbed it of its true meaning, which is, to intimate delicately, to refer to without mentioning directly. Allude is now very rarely used in any other sense than that of to speak of, to mention, to name, which is a long way from being ...
— The Verbalist • Thomas Embly Osmun, (AKA Alfred Ayres)

... disciple," said the sages, "may chain himself to a tree, and gaze upon the sun until he is deprived of the faculty of vision. He may drive an iron bar through his cheeks and tongue, thus preventing all misuse of the gift of speech. It is open to him to bury himself in the earth up to his waist, relying for his maintenance on the alms of pious donors. He may recline upon a couch studded with spikes, until from the induration of his skin ...
— The Twilight of the Gods, and Other Tales • Richard Garnett

... was done with it. With that amount, Otto, you know I can recoup all these terrible losses, and in less than a year all will be repaid. But without it. . . . You must get it, Otto. Hear me, you must. Am I to be arrested for the misuse of trust moneys? Is our honoured name to be cursed and spat on?" The old man choked and stammered in his anger ...
— The Empty House And Other Ghost Stories • Algernon Blackwood

... radical change in transportation" brought about by the 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

... all be good to me if on the right principles I 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 to it. ...
— Time and Change • John Burroughs

... 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 fall, ...
— Types of Children's Literature • Edited by Walter Barnes

... origin. Nor, indeed, does it come down from English in an unbroken line. Overlooked for centuries, it was revived (or invented) in America some fifty years ago, and it is not to Dekker and Ben Jonson that we must look for palliation of its misuse. ...
— American Sketches - 1908 • Charles Whibley

... hardly ever abused—hardly ever even used. {176} Why is it hardly ever used? For the good reason that all men know it is existing, and can be used should the need arise. Even were it to be misused, the misuse would happen under responsible ministers, who could be challenged to answer for it, and who would have to make good their defence. But if the House of Lords were made supreme over the House of Commons in every instance, by abolishing the unlimited ...
— A History of the Four Georges, Volume I (of 4) • Justin McCarthy

... beneficence and forbid malevolence: so shalt thou be loved of Allah. Adorn thine inner man and Allah shall adorn thine outer man. Accept the excuse of him who excuseth self to thee and hate not any one of the Moslems. Draw near unto those who withdraw from thee and excuse those that misuse thee: so shalt thou be the friend of the Prophets. Let thine affairs, both public and private, be in Allah's charge, and fear Him with the fear of one who knoweth he is dead and who fareth towards Resurrection and Judgement stead between the hands of the Lord of Dread; and ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton

... 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 on ...
— Raiding with Morgan • Byron A. Dunn

... should 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 ...
— Mrs Whittelsey's Magazine for Mothers and Daughters - Volume 3 • Various

... to time, spoken of that foolish misuse of the Scriptures, by which any one opening the volume of the Bible at random, and taking the first words which he finds, straightway applies them either to himself or to his neighbour; and then boasts that he has the word of God on ...
— The Christian Life - Its Course, Its Hindrances, And Its Helps • Thomas Arnold

... 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 time of ...
— Russia • Donald Mackenzie Wallace

... Vauvenargues were a plea for a return to a healthy and normal sense of relations. 'These philosophers,' he cried, 'are men, yet they do not speak in human language; they change all the ideas of things, and misuse all their terms.'[41] These are some of the most direct of his retorts upon Pascal ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol 2 of 3) - Essay 1: Vauvenargues • John Morley

... the dull 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, hold ...
— The Long Night • Stanley Weyman

... have 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 avoid any action ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft

... expensive entertainments or anything striking, but in all small ways, scarcely noticeable except in general effect, but none the less expensive. They could not afford it; the past nine months had been very difficult, first the Captain's unfortunate misuse of the cheque, then Violet's engagement and the necessary entertainment that it involved, and then her wedding. Financially they were in a very bad way, but that did not prevent them spending—or owing—in a rather lordly fashion. Mrs. Polkington with one daughter married, and another ...
— The Good Comrade • Una L. Silberrad

... miners were killed and 44 wounded, of whom 10 of the killed and 12 of the wounded were Austrian and Hungarian subjects. This deplorable event naturally aroused the solicitude of the Austro-Hungarian Government, which, on the assumption that the killing and wounding involved the unjustifiable misuse of authority, claimed reparation for the sufferers. Apart from the searching investigation and peremptory action of the authorities of Pennsylvania, the Federal Executive took appropriate steps to learn the merits of the case, in order to be in a position to meet ...
— Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents • William McKinley

... here represented as great popular errors. But why at this time? Wherefore all this heat at the present moment? Grant that the propositions denounced as erroneous were so in very deed, why should criminals standing under the shadow of public vengeance ready to descend, so childishly misuse the interval, mercifully allowed for their own defence, in reading lectures upon abstract political speculations, confessedly bearing no relation to any militant interest now in question? Quite as impertinent it would be, when called upon for the answer upon 'Guilty or not Guilty?' ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. 1 (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey

... indicated by saying that Plato had no physics and that Aristotle's physics was false; so that ideal science in the one suffered from want of environment and control, while in the other it suffered from misuse in a sphere where it ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana

... forget—how good you were to me in those days," 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 ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... 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 ...
— Appreciations, with an Essay on Style • Walter Horatio Pater

... others, whom you 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 ...
— The Abbot • Sir Walter Scott

... a visitation on our sins. But for what sins? O, beware of taking the prohibitions of the Decalogue in a lump, its named sins as equivalent! In every one of you must live an inward witness that these sins do not rank equally in God's eye; that to murder, for instance, is wickeder than to misuse the Lord's name in a hasty oath; that to bear false witness against a neighbour is tenfold worse than to break the Sabbath. Yet we for ever in our Churches put these out of their right order; count ourselves righteous if we slander our neighbour, so it be on the way to worship; ...
— Nicky-Nan, Reservist • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch (Q)

... doting fondness of weak women; it was the appreciative and discriminating love by which a higher nature recognised god-like capabilities under all the dust and defilement of misuse and passion: and she never doubted that the love which in her was so strong, that no injury or insult could shake it, was yet stronger in the God who made her capable of such a devotion, and that in him it was ...
— Lady Byron Vindicated • Harriet Beecher Stowe

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

... 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 and ...
— The 2005 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency

... DUCKWORTH, in a letter written to a Vegetarian Correspondent, says, "I believe in the value of animal food and alcoholic drinks for the best interests of man. The abuse or misuse of ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101. Sep. 12, 1891 • Various

... repudiate his wife, disown her, and send her from his door for almost any reason, real or false. In earlier times, at the epoch when the liberty of the citizen was the pride of Rome, marriage almost languished there on account of the misuse of divorce, and both men and women were allowed to profit by the laxity of the laws on this subject. Seneca said, in one instance: "That Roman woman counts her years, not by the number of consuls, ...
— Women of the Romance Countries • John R. Effinger

... direct a bearing upon health, are in another way even more important; for a large part of leisure, even at school and still more, in all probability, afterwards, falls at times and under conditions that make some indoor occupation necessary, and the waste or misuse of these times is likely to be greater. In this group certain things need be no more than mentioned, as either applying, at any given time, only to a few picked individuals, or else likely, in the majority ...
— Cambridge Essays on Education • Various

... that the war zone proclamation was in reprisal for the "blockade" of Great Britain and that if "at the eleventh hour" the United States should prevail upon Germany's enemies to abandon their methods of maritime warfare, Germany would modify its order. It charged misuse of neutral flags and the arming of merchant ships by ...
— Kelly Miller's History of the World War for Human Rights • Kelly Miller

... present trend of the discussion if we single out first of all the care for the girls who are in danger of becoming victims of private or professional misuse as the result of their ignorance of the world of erotics. This type of alarming news most often reaches the imagination of the newspaper reader nowadays, and this is the appeal of the most sensational plays. The spectre of the white slavery danger threatens the whole nation, and the ...
— Psychology and Social Sanity • Hugo Muensterberg

... Misuse may turn the sweetest sweet To loathsome wormwood, I repeat; Yea, wholesome medicine, full of grace, May prove a poison—out ...
— A Wanderer in Holland • E. V. Lucas

... education and facile journalism, to be reminded of the real scholarship that is essential to the perfect writer, who, 'being a true lover of words for their own sake, a minute and constant observer of their physiognomy,' will avoid what is mere rhetoric, or ostentatious ornament, or negligent misuse of terms, or ineffective surplusage, and will be known by his tact of omission, by his skilful economy of means, by his selection and self-restraint, and perhaps above all by that conscious artistic structure ...
— Reviews • Oscar Wilde

... apprehended by the writer. He can avoid the use of those pedantic terms which are really nothing but offensive and, fortunately, ephemeral scientific slang. There has been, for instance, a recent vogue for the extensive misuse, usually tautological misuse, of the word "complexus"—an excellent word if used rarely and for definite purposes. Mr. Haseman drags it in continually when its use is either pointless and redundant or else serves purely to darken wisdom. He speaks of the ...
— Through the Brazilian Wilderness • Theodore Roosevelt

... superior government, in order to have the payment of their tribute in kind remitted, and offering to pay it in money. This is the precise moment when, as his own profits depend on the misery of the province under his command, he endeavors to misuse the accidental power with which he is invested. Hence it happens that, instead of acting as a beneficent mediator, and supporting the just solicitations of the natives, he at first disregards their petition, and then all at once transforming ...
— The Former Philippines thru Foreign Eyes • Fedor Jagor; Tomas de Comyn; Chas. Wilkes; Rudolf Virchow.

... always on the right side in these things; therefore let his advice prevail. A few flowers placed in the dead hand, perhaps a simple wreath, but not those unmeaning memorials which have become to real mourners such sad perversities of good taste, such a misuse of flowers. Let those who can afford to send such things devote the money to the use of poor mothers who cannot afford to buy a coffin for a dead child or a coat for a ...
— Manners and Social Usages • Mrs. John M. E. W. Sherwood

... allusions to the 'English times' of Cromwell; the old-fashioned reporters, hugging their Norman-French and looking with suspicion on popular intelligence, were vehement in expressing their contempt for the prevalent misuse of the mother tongue. "I have," observes Styles, in the preface to his reports, "made these reports speak English; not that I believe that they will be thereby more generally useful, for I have always been and yet am of opinion, that ...
— A Book About Lawyers • John Cordy Jeaffreson

... spot gave of their private store to mitigate the pangs of the sufferers, no gratitude was entertained to the British public or to the government. Starving Ireland armed to strike down her benefactors with weapons procured by the misuse of the boon whicli these benefactors had extended. However painful it may be to relate the story of such turpitude, truth constrains it: the Irish peasant begged, that he might arm against the charitable hand that succoured him. Persons ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan

... thoughts of revenge," Master Sean droned on. "Or, if he's the type who enjoys watching others suffer, or the type who doesn't care but is willing to do anything for gain, then his mind is already warped and the misuse of the Talent just ...
— The Eyes Have It • Gordon Randall Garrett

... claim a single supper; if he take more he is a thief (the mark of a prae-tabernal era when hospitality was waxing cold through misuse). ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")

... man live as he may, it yet shall be well with him in the end. The facts of experience are against it; the words of Christ are against it. "The very conception of human freedom involves the possibility of its permanent misuse, of what our Lord Himself calls 'eternal sin.'" If a man can go on successfully resisting Divine grace in this life, what reason have we for supposing that it would suddenly become irresistible in another life? Build what we may on the unrevealed mercies of the future ...
— The Teaching of Jesus • George Jackson

... an Englishman, came among a band of Alaskan natives about the middle of the last century, and they formed a strong mutual attachment. The friendship of these simple people was not misplaced, and Mr. Duncan did not misuse it for his own advantage, as is too apt to be the case with a white man. He adapted himself to their temperament and sense of natural justice, but gradually led them to prefer civilized habits and industries, and finally to accept the character of Christ as their standard. ...
— The Indian Today - The Past and Future of the First American • Charles A. Eastman

... an accent. The boy spoke in a mellow Irish voice, sweet and pure. It was scarcely definite enough to be called brogue, yet there was a trick in the turning of the sentence, the wrong sound of a letter here and there, that was almost irresistible to McLean, and presaged a misuse of infinitives and possessives with which he was very familiar and which touched him nearly. He was of foreign birth, and despite years of alienation, in times of strong feeling he committed inherited ...
— Freckles • Gene Stratton-Porter

... 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 ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens

... of arbitrary violence and the substitution for it of force regulated by justice. Coercion, in the form of law, was identical with the protection of the weak against the strong and the erection of an impregnable barrier against the tyrannous misuse of power. This doctrine exactly expressed his own character, for, as he was strong, he was also one of the most magnanimous of men. He was incapable of being overbearing in social intercourse. He had the fighting instinct to the full. An encounter with a downright enemy was a delight ...
— The Life of Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, Bart., K.C.S.I. - A Judge of the High Court of Justice • Sir Leslie Stephen

... 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 ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers

... no sin, no misuse of power in sending into the world swarms of fortuitous, poverty-stricken human souls, as those souls must be who are born in bondage, with the blended instincts of the slave and the master for a proud inheritance? ...
— The Daughters of Danaus • Mona Caird

... be less so? for what earthly good Can man possess which he may not enjoy? Parents, a prosp'rous country, friends, birth, riches. Yet these all take their value from the mind Of the possessor: he that knows their use, To him they're blessings; he that knows it not, To him misuse converts them into curses. ...
— The Comedies of Terence • Publius Terentius Afer

... 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 facts ...
— Lola - The Thought and Speech of Animals • Henny Kindermann

... "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 and, a fortiori, ...
— The Framework of Home Rule • Erskine Childers

... wished he could repeat a charge never before made against a Cape Cod minister, but—and he shut his lips more obviously. The other men, who were in the plot, grinned, and this added the last touch to Captain Doane's indignation. He sprang to his feet. One of his peculiarities was a constant misuse of words, and now, in his excitement, ...
— The Story of a Pioneer - With The Collaboration Of Elizabeth Jordan • Anna Howard Shaw

... possess voice-mechanism, and possibly there is no other physical apparatus that is misused so much. Americans misuse it even in speech; yet what a valuable possession is an agreeable and pleasant speaking-voice. This abuse of the vocal organs by the great majority of Americans makes the establishment of a correct method of voice-production in ...
— The Voice - Its Production, Care and Preservation • Frank E. Miller

... had certain powers and limitations. His powers, briefly, were, mastery of his body, of his mental faculties, and powers in the spirit realm so lost to us now that we cannot even say definitely what they are. And mastery means poised, mature control, not misuse, nor abuse, nor lack of use, but full proper use. Possibly there were powers of communication between men in addition to speech unknown to us. Then, too, he had dominion over nature, over all the animal creation, over all the forces of nature, and not only dominion, but ...
— Quiet Talks about Jesus • S. D. Gordon

... 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

... pointing to the divine healing which is meant to follow, and in exhorting to submission. We may recall the beautiful expansion of that exhortation in Hebrews, where 'faint not' is added to 'despise not,' so including the two opposite and yet closely connected forms of misuse of sorrow, according as we stiffen our wills against it, and try to make light of it, or yield so utterly to it as to collapse. Either extreme equally misses the corrective ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren

... life, by itself, creates more problems than it solves. The problem of international disarmament, for example, has been forced on us by the fear of that perdition to the suburbs of which our race has manifestly come through the misuse of scientific knowledge. Humanity is disturbed about itself because it has discovered that it is in possession of power enough to wreck the world. Never before did mankind have so much energy to handle. Multitudes of people, dubious as ...
— Christianity and Progress • Harry Emerson Fosdick

... the whole question of the factory method and the use and misuse of machinery. It seems to me that the true principle is that machinery and the factory are admissible only when so employed they actually do produce, in bulk operations, a better product, and with less labour, than is possible through hand work. ...
— Towards the Great Peace • Ralph Adams Cram

... 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

... the tender enthusiasm stealing upon himself in a degree that became almost 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

... not unkindly that a traveller (though less wide a wanderer than thou) dissuadeth thee from a new-found novelty—the wanton misuse, or rather the misuseful wantonness, of the Indian herb. It is a blind goose that knoweth not a fox from a fern-bush, and a strange temerity that mistaketh smoke for provender. The sow, when she is sick, eateth the sea-crab and is immediately recovered: why, then, should man, being whole ...
— Old Friends - Essays in Epistolary Parody • Andrew Lang

... iii. 3); of "fornication," and that not merely in a single instance (1 Cor. v, vi); of tampering with idolatrous feastings (1 Cor. viii); of disorders in their religious assemblies, and especially of gross profanity in the celebration of the Lord's Supper (1 Cor. xi); of strange misuse of the miraculous gifts of the Holy Ghost (1 Cor. xii, xiv); and of denying the great doctrine of the Resurrection (1 Cor. xv. 12). All of these charges show how strongly the tares began at once to grow amongst the wheat. And, in later years, ...
— The Kingdom of Heaven; What is it? • Edward Burbidge

... it a misuse of the funds of a city to provide entertainments for the people July 4? To expend money in entertaining distinguished guests? To provide flowers, carriages, cigars, wines, etc., ...
— Civil Government in the United States Considered with - Some Reference to Its Origins • John Fiske

... extensively benefited the cause of religion, one of whose most useful handmaids is mental cultivation, will surely be among the most serious of the sins of omission that will swell our account at the last day. The intellectual Dives will not be punished only for the misuse of his riches, as in the case of a Byron or a Shelley; the neglect of their improvement, by employing them for the good of others, will equally disqualify him for hearing the final commendation of "Well done, good and faithful servant."[72] ...
— The Young Lady's Mentor - A Guide to the Formation of Character. In a Series of Letters to Her Unknown Friends • A Lady

... "poor" is an epithet in very common misuse. It is often brought into play, especially in its plaintive sense, in situations, where, poor thing, it scarcely knows itself, and where there is not the slightest provocation to account for the use of it. It is degraded to the condition of a mere expletive; and, where ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 20, No. 577 - Volume 20, Number 577, Saturday, November 24, 1832 • Various

... 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 Museum at ...
— Intarsia and Marquetry • F. Hamilton Jackson

... valid argument against developing to the utmost the communication between the department and the fleet. It is, however, a very valid argument against developing it unless there be developed simultaneously some means like a "safety device" for preventing or at least discouraging its misuse. ...
— The Navy as a Fighting Machine • Bradley A. Fiske

... the throat is believed 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 ...
— The Psychology of Singing - A Rational Method of Voice Culture Based on a Scientific Analysis of All Systems, Ancient and Modern • David C. Taylor

... 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

... an inhospitable thing to misuse a man who had acted the good Samaritan so arduously as the little Doctor with three quarters of his bottle gone, but as he slapped the cork in it again I stepped to the door and turned the key. Paddy was scowling now and then, and groaning now and again, when the cheerful ...
— The O'Ruddy - A Romance • Stephen Crane

... now used in a most ignorant way; and from its misuse it has come to be a word wholly useless: for it is now never coupled, I think, with any other substantive than these two—faith and confidence: a poor domain indeed to have sunk to from its original wide range of territory. Moreover, ...
— The Notebook of an English Opium-Eater • Thomas de Quincey

... barbarians of our streets, our suburban "white niggers," with a thousand a year and the conceit of Imperial destinies. They live in our mother-tongue as some half-civilized invaders might live in a gigantic and splendidly equipped palace. They misuse this, they waste that, they leave whole corridors and wings unexplored, to fall into disuse and decay. I doubt if the ordinary member of the prosperous classes in England has much more than a third ...
— Mankind in the Making • H. G. Wells

... may be carried to excess, as complained of by the ancients. The unmeaning application of the words relaxation and bracing to warm and cold baths has much prevented the use of this grateful stimulus; and the misuse of the term warm-bath, when applied to baths colder than the body, as to those of Buxton and Matlock, and to artificial baths of less than 90 degrees of heat, which ought to be termed cold ones, has contributed to mislead the unwary in ...
— Zoonomia, Vol. II - Or, the Laws of Organic Life • Erasmus Darwin

... dishonest Varlet, We cannot misuse enough: We'll leaue a proofe by that which we will doo, Wiues may be merry, and yet honest too: We do not acte that often, iest, and laugh, 'Tis old, but true, Still Swine eats ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare

... the error of using the awakened Will for selfish ends, as may be seen in the cases of the Black Magicians spoken of in the occult writings, and also in the cases of well known characters in history and in modern life, who manifest an enormous Will which they misuse. All of this class of people of great Will have stumbled or grown blindly into a consciousness (or partial consciousness) of the real nature, but lack the restraining influence of the higher teachings. But such misuse of the Will brings pain and unrest to the user, and he is eventually ...
— A Series of Lessons in Raja Yoga • Yogi Ramacharaka

... have you 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 ...
— The Yellow Crayon • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... short of supreme 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 ...
— The Flourishing of Romance and the Rise of Allegory - (Periods of European Literature, vol. II) • George Saintsbury

... letters, the poet Cowper says: 'The ballad is a species of poetry, I believe, peculiar to this country.... Simplicity and ease are its proper characteristics.' Here we have one of the earliest attempts to define the modern meaning of a 'ballad.' Centuries of use and misuse of the word have left us no unequivocal name for the ballad, and we are forced to qualify it with epithets. 'Traditional' might be deemed sufficient; but 'popular' or 'communal' is more definite. Here we adopt the word used ...
— Ballads of Romance and Chivalry - Popular Ballads of the Olden Times - First Series • Frank Sidgwick

... this night, and take mine to thyself. But if both sides be with thee, mine advocate in tribulation and fear, but thine in joy and refreshment, me thinketh it is not a fair trial, but a tyrannical misuse of power, and a breaking of the covenants." The king, compelled to yield by the gracefulness of this speech took his wise men and priests to himself, and delivered Nachor to his son, still having hopes of him and thinking fit to keep ...
— Barlaam and Ioasaph • St. John of Damascus

... good actor will hardly despise, especially with due precaution against his contracting any thing forced or affected in his air or steps, from his attention to his improvement by dancing, as the very best things may be even pernicious by a misuse. Whatever is not natural, free, and easy, will undoubtedly, on the stage, as every where else, have a bad effect. A very little matter of excess will, from his aim at a grace, produce a ridiculous caricature. Too stiff a regulation of his motions or gestures, ...
— A Treatise on the Art of Dancing • Giovanni-Andrea Gallini

... Very well! Now I have a good mind to lock you up again, and not let you see my lord to-night. Miss Hoyd. My lord: why, is my husband come? Nurse. Yes, marry, is he; and a goodly person too. Miss Hoyd. [Hugs NURSE.] Oh, my dear nurse, forgive me this once, and I'll never misuse you again; no, if I do, you shall give me three thumps on the back, and a great pinch by the cheek. Nurse. Ah, the poor thing! see now it melts; it's as full of good-nature as an egg's full of meat. Miss Hoyd. But, my dear nurse, don't lie now—is he come, ...
— Scarborough and the Critic • Sheridan

... four essays are largely concerned with defending the legitimacy of religious faith. To some rationalizing readers such advocacy will seem a sad misuse of one's professional position. Mankind, they will say, is only too prone to follow faith unreasoningly, and needs no preaching nor encouragement in that direction. I quite agree that what mankind at large most lacks is criticism and caution, not faith. Its cardinal weakness ...
— The Will to Believe - and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy • William James

... a thief,' answered Wayland, 'then you do well to load me with chains and lead me bound into your dungeons; but if not, I ask again, Why do you misuse me?' ...
— The Book of Romance • Various

... by sudden greatness in the Athenians, tempting their statesmen to degrade the presidency of a free confederacy into a dominion of Athens over Greece, and tempting the Athenian proletariat, and the proletariat in the confederate states, to misuse democracy for the exploitation of the rich by the poor. Envy and covetousness begat injustice, and injustice disloyalty. The city-states, in their rivalry for dominion or their resentment against the domineering ...
— The Legacy of Greece • Various

... unbounded confidence in the all-sufficiency of education, it is most natural that we should turn to it in these times when we have come to realize the existence of amazing sexual problems caused either by ignorant misuse, or by deliberate abuse, of the sexual functions which biologically are intrusted with the perpetuation of human life and which psychologically are the source of human affection in its supreme forms. If education is to solve the civic, hygienic, and industrial problems of to-day and to-morrow, ...
— Sex-education - A series of lectures concerning knowledge of sex in its - relation to human life • Maurice Alpheus Bigelow

... Swire!" she 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 and ...
— Sir Nigel • Arthur Conan Doyle

... the said colony no person should be molested, punished or called in question for any differences of opinion in matters of religion; but that all persons at all times should have full liberty of conscience, so long as they behaved themselves peaceably and did not misuse this liberty in licentiousness or profaneness, nor to the injury or disturbance of others.[82] Thus a colony was granted that which in the mother-country at the time was contested to the utmost. Similar principles are found for the first time in Europe in the Practice of Frederick ...
— The Declaration of the Rights of Man and of Citizens • Georg Jellinek

... used to wash away the traces of travel by a Turkish bath which mostly ended in the appearance of a rump wriggling little lad who offered to shampoo them. Many accepted his offices without dreaming of his usual-use or misuse. ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 4 • Richard F. Burton

... figliuol," &c.: (but the usurers, who made their money inactively, sit on the sand, equally without rest, however. "Di qua, di la, soccorrien," &c.) For it is not avarice, but contention for riches, leading to this double misuse of them, which, in Dante's light, is the unredeemable sin. The place of its punishment is guarded by Plutus, "the great enemy," and "la fiera crudele," a spirit quite different from the Greek Plutus, who, though old and blind, is not cruel, and is curable, so as to become far-sighted. ([Greek: ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin

... power for good or you shall weep eternally. To misuse occult powers for mean, selfish, or low ends and to prostitute it into enslaving others weaker than yourselves mentally and physically is the greatest 'sin' ...
— The Doctrine and Practice of Yoga • A. P. Mukerji

... must unfold these higher uses by intelligence, skill, toil, and character. At some time every particle of the civilised world has been like the old frontier on this continent, and men have reclaimed either the desert or the wilderness by their heroic sacrifices and labours. It is a misuse of language, therefore, to say that the world is made; it is not made, because it is being made century by century through the ...
— Essays On Work And Culture • Hamilton Wright Mabie

... beasts of burden. The poor man will be tempted franctically to oppose his selfishness and unbelief to the selfishness and unbelief of the rich, and clutch from him by force the comfort which really belong to neither of them, in order that he may pride himself in them and misuse them in his turn; and the clergy will be tempted, as they have too often been tempted already, to fancy that reason is the enemy, and not the twin sister of faith; to oppose revelation to science, as if God's two messages could contradict each ...
— Sermons on National Subjects • Charles Kingsley

... time, but not a single copy is known to exist. One cause of this disappearance now appears to be that it had no sale at first, and that Pope preserved the sheets for use in a more elaborate device which followed. Oxford probably objected to the misuse of his name, as the fiction which made him responsible was afterwards dropped. Pope found, or thought that he had found, on the next occasion, a more convenient cat's-paw. Curll, it could not be doubted, would snatch at any chance of publishing more correspondence; and, as Pope was anxious to ...
— Alexander Pope - English Men of Letters Series • Leslie Stephen

... lost you. If I have had, indirectly, any act or part in the fate of that unhappy man, by putting means, however small, within his reach, Heaven forgive me! I might have known, perhaps, that he would misuse money; that it was ill-bestowed upon him; and that sown by his hands it could engender mischief only. But I never thought of him at that time as having the disposition or ability to be a serious impostor, or otherwise than as a thoughtless, idle-humoured, dissipated ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens

... God would be an unjust God, and a cruel God likewise. If God be just, as He is, then He has boundless pity for those who are weak, but boundless wrath for the strong who misuse the weak. Boundless pity for those who are ignorant, misled, and out of the right way; but boundless wrath for those who mislead them and put them out of ...
— Daily Thoughts - selected from the writings of Charles Kingsley by his wife • Charles Kingsley

... ancestry as ourselves; and in the course of the last 100,000 years or so our stock has seen so many changes, that their stocks may possibly have seen a few also. Yet the real remedy, I take it, against the misuse of analogy is that the student should make himself sufficiently at home in both branches of anthropology to know each of the two things he compares for ...
— Anthropology • Robert Marett

... slave-laws, and slave-owners are responsible for their condition. Such were the kind of men I had to work with. These men would quarrel and wrangle among themselves, and would consume time and neglect their work. When the house-servants were at work in the field, they would insult and misuse them in every conceivable manner, and it was with great difficulty that Mr. Dansley could get his work done properly and in season. Knowing I had been a farm-superintendent on Wilson's plantation for a number of years, Mr. Dansley ...
— Biography of a Slave - Being the Experiences of Rev. Charles Thompson • Charles Thompson

... Plan of Management 2. what we have defined as the "Transitory" plan of management 3. management which not only is not striving to be scientific, but which confounds "science" with "system." Both its advocates and opponents have been guilty of misuse of the word. Still, in spite of this, the very fact that the word has had a wide use, that it has become habitual to think of the new type of management as "Scientific," makes its choice advisable. We shall use it, but restrict its content. With us "Scientific Management" ...
— The Psychology of Management - The Function of the Mind in Determining, Teaching and - Installing Methods of Least Waste • L. M. Gilbreth

... there is a use of the pronoun with an unclear antecedent buried somewhere in the sentence, so that the pronoun seems to refer to an intervening word. Such a misuse really is a matter of clearness rather than of grammar, and should come under the next section of this chapter, but it will be discussed here for the sake of including all misuses of the pronoun at once. The ambiguous use of pronouns is the most ...
— News Writing - The Gathering , Handling and Writing of News Stories • M. Lyle Spencer

... unfit, and the civil sanctions may fail. There may not be the necessary harmony between economic conditions and political institutions, or the classes which hold the social forces in their hands may misuse them for their selfish interest at the expense of others. The philosophical and ethical generalizations which are produced by the mores rise into a realm of intellect and reason which is proud, noble, and grand. The power of the intelligence is a human prerogative. ...
— Folkways - A Study of the Sociological Importance of Usages, Manners, Customs, Mores, and Morals • William Graham Sumner

... faculty of willing is undoubtedly a degree of being, and of good, or perfection; but good-will, benevolence, or desire of good, is another degree of superior good. For one may misuse will in order to wish ill, cheat, hurt, or do injustice; whereas good- will is the good or right use of will itself, which cannot but be good. Good-will is therefore what is most precious in man. It is that which sets a value upon all the rest. It is, as it were, ...
— The Existence of God • Francois de Salignac de La Mothe- Fenelon

... than the gifts themselves is the great care and thought you have taken in guarding against their misuse. ...
— Autobiography of Andrew Carnegie • Andrew Carnegie

... replied, "the mighty conqueror King Arthur has sent me as his ambassador to this giant, to inquire why he ventures thus to misuse and maltreat the people of ...
— Young Folks Treasury, Volume 2 (of 12) • Various

... intercourse between minds of various bents, the debating clubs, the social unions, and not the lecture halls or study desks, that the Oxford student draws strength and elegance of character. It is the want or misuse of these opportunities that leaves the young Irish ...
— The Young Priest's Keepsake • Michael Phelan

... good forever on the defensive, the bad forever in assault. In the present condition of the earth, evil is a more active principle than good, and the evil would prevail. It is for these reasons that we are not only solemnly bound to administer our lore only to those who will not misuse and pervert it, but that we place our ordeal in tests that purify the passions and elevate the desires. And Nature in this controls and assists us: for it places awful guardians and insurmountable barriers between the ...
— Zanoni • Edward Bulwer Lytton

... haps but an inevitable reaction against the injuries, still more lavish, by which the unfortunate building had long been overwhelmed. It had fallen into a state of ruinous neglect, relieved only by the misuse pro- ceeding from successive generations of soldiers, for whom its charming chambers served as barrack-room. Whitewashed, mutilated, dishonored, the castle of Blois may be said to have escaped simply with its life. This ...
— A Little Tour in France • Henry James

... that electric 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

... Reuben; don't misuse the English language. But it's of no use, I tell you. He won't stop another day, so you must have it settled right off to-day, for it shall never be said that a MacFearsome was married without the benefit ...
— The Thorogood Family • R.M. Ballantyne

... a shallow, selfish, adorable scoun—No, I won't use that word in speaking of Jerrold; but it's what I fear. Rollins, you call him generous. Well, so he is,—lavish, if you like, with his money and his hospitality here in the post. Money comes easily to him, and goes; but you boys misuse the term. I call him selfish to the core, because he can deny himself no luxury, no pleasure, though it may wring a woman's life—or, more than that, her honor—to give it him." The captain was tramping up and down the ...
— From the Ranks • Charles King

... representatives from the towns in forming a distinct body in Parliament, sitting 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

... bolstering will ever make it into a comedy. You may add a lot of knockabout and perhaps get an acceptable farce, or you can write in sensation and get travesty, but you cannot by these means change the unfit into comedy, and the broad use of 'comedy' to apply to anything intended to be diverting is a misuse of an ancient and honorable word.... To my way of thinking comedy is first of all a good story. It is a story and not merely an incident or a collection of incidents. There must be a plot to obtain and ...
— Writing the Photoplay • J. Berg Esenwein and Arthur Leeds

... conception of the God of power, wisdom and love. But even then the heart whispers: "He is that, and infinitely more than that, even as the sun is more than the little taper man has made." But if the reason and memory, through misuse, furnish but few of the truths about God, and if the imagination has been weakened in its power, then how poor the picture ...
— A Man's Value to Society - Studies in Self Culture and Character • Newell Dwight Hillis

... had no sin I should not need Christ. No, Satan, you cannot delude me into thinking I am holy. The truth is, I am all sin. My sins are not imaginary transgressions, but sins against the first table, unbelief, doubt, despair, contempt, hatred, ignorance of God, ingratitude towards Him, misuse of His name, neglect of His Word, etc.; and sins against the second table, dishonor of parents, disobedience of government, coveting of another's possessions, etc. Granted that I have not committed murder, ...
— Commentary on the Epistle to the Galatians • Martin Luther

... to the other qualities mentioned above, I say that every prince ought to desire to be considered clement and not cruel. Nevertheless he ought to take care not to misuse this clemency. Cesare Borgia was considered cruel; notwithstanding, his cruelty reconciled the Romagna, unified it, and restored it to peace and loyalty. And if this be rightly considered, he will be seen to have been much ...
— The Prince • Niccolo Machiavelli

... quotation. The time when the article was read was good for Miss Bronte; she was numbed to all petty annoyances by the grand severity of Death. Otherwise she might have felt more keenly than they deserved the criticisms which, while striving to be severe, failed in logic, owing to the misuse of prepositions; and have smarted under conjectures as to the authorship of "Jane Eyre," which, intended to be acute, were merely flippant. But flippancy takes a graver name when directed against an author by an anonymous writer. We call it then ...
— The Life of Charlotte Bronte • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell

... strange that she had begun to love him when the last sand of his life was well nigh run out; that wondrous are the ways of the revolving heavens which bestow wealth upon the niggard that cannot use it, wisdom upon the bad man who will misuse it, a beautiful wife upon the fool who cannot protect her, and fertilizing showers upon the stony hills. And thinking over these things, the gallant ...
— Vikram and the Vampire • Sir Richard F. Burton

... and usually that cause is one of which the shooter is entirely ignorant, but 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 shell, ...
— The Boy Mechanic: Volume 1 - 700 Things For Boys To Do • Popular Mechanics

... 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 also... ...
— Big Game - A Story for Girls • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey

... an idea is 'true' so long as to believe it is profitable to our lives. That it is GOOD, for as much as it profits, you will gladly admit. If what we do by its aid is good, you will allow the idea itself to be good in so far forth, for we are the better for possessing it. But is it not a strange misuse of the word 'truth,' you will say, to call ideas also 'true' for ...
— Pragmatism - A New Name for Some Old Ways of Thinking • William James

... line of this couplet, that he is perjured in loving Rosaline may be taken as applying to the circumstances of the play; but Shakespeare also talks of himself in sonnet 152 as "perjured," for he only swears in order to misuse his love, or with a side glance at the fact that he is married and therefore perjured when he swears love to one not his wife. It is well to keep this ...
— The Man Shakespeare • Frank Harris

... would not take J. Edward Addicks' guarantee in any form he could possibly put it. Once he got his hands on my company, for even thirty days, he would so far misuse it that he would deliberately default for the purpose of returning it to me in a damaged condition, and, in addition, would play some of those tricks which are second ...
— Frenzied Finance - Vol. 1: The Crime of Amalgamated • Thomas W. Lawson

... his true views, for we find that in "Religion Within the Limits of Pure Reason," he is actively antagonistic to ecclesiasticism, so much so that, for publishing this work, he was censured by the Prussian king, who wrote, "Our highest person has been greatly displeased to observe how you misuse your philosophy to undermine and destroy many of the most important and fundamental doctrines of the Holy Scriptures and of Christianity." Indeed, many a man approaching Kant with a firm theistic belief finds his belief somewhat shaken ...
— The Necessity of Atheism • Dr. D.M. Brooks

... war zone are in danger, as in consequence of the misuse of neutral flags ordered by the British Government on Jan. 31, and in view of the hazards of naval warfare, it cannot always be avoided that attacks meant for enemy ships ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 2, No. 1, April, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various

... by, but Harris scarcely knew of its passing. He had long ago ceased to take any personal interest in the frivolities of the neighbourhood; he saw in picnics and baseball games only an unprofitable misuse of time, and when he thought of them at all it was to congratulate himself that Allan was not led away by any such foolishness. Finding no great happiness in his own home, he had fallen into the way of walking over to Riles's on Sunday ...
— The Homesteaders - A Novel of the Canadian West • Robert J. C. Stead

... young Scot's courage 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

... literature are simple paraphrases of Holy Writ. And interweave all your sentences with the Sacred Text. All the temporal prosperity of England comes from the use of the Bible, all its spiritual raggedness and nakedness from its misuse. They made it a fetish. And their commentators are proving, or rather trying to prove, that it is only a little wax and pasteboard—only the literature of an obscure and subjugated race. But, even as literature, ...
— My New Curate • P.A. Sheehan

... can be used in a sense that is both high and sacred. If a gifted writer take literature as a great vocation and determine to use his talents faithfully and well, without reference to fee or reward; if prosperity cannot seduce him to the misuse of his genius, then we give him our high praise. Let it still not be forgotten that the labourer is worthy of his hire. But if the hire is not forthcoming, and he knowing it, yet says in his heart, "The work must still be done"; and if he does it ...
— Principles of Freedom • Terence J. MacSwiney

... really tasteful and appropriate dwelling-house given. The designs by Downing, rarely much more than commodious residences with great neatness rather than artistic beauty, stand very well for that style of building which consults comfort and attains it, but it is a misuse of words to call them artistic. Picturesque they may be at times, but often the affectation of external style puts Downing's designs into the category of Gothic follies and Grecian villanies, in which the outside gives the lie to the inside,—emulating ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 12, October, 1858 • Various

... blacksmith-hands and the thick strong fingers with the hair-pads on the back to every first joint. He was unlovely to the eye, and he was unlovely to all her finer sensibilities. It was not his strength itself, but the quality of it and the misuse of it, that affronted her. The beating he had given the gentle Mr. Moody had meant half-hours of horror to her afterward. Always did the memory of it come to her accompanied by a shudder. And yet, without shock, she had seen Billy fight at Weasel Park in the same ...
— The Valley of the Moon • Jack London

... one can readily infer when and in how many ways God's name is misused, although it is impossible to enumerate all its misuses. Yet, to tell it in a few words, all misuse of the divine name occurs, first, in worldly business and in matters which concern money, possessions, honor, whether it be publicly in court, in the market, or wherever else men make false oaths ...
— The Large Catechism by Dr. Martin Luther



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



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