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Literary notes about abusive (AI summary)

The term "abusive" in literature has been used with a remarkable flexibility, describing everything from verbal aggression to the seriousness of moral corruption. In some texts, it serves as a critique of practices or behaviors—Émile Durkheim, for example, deems certain extensions of totemism as abusive in their overreach [1]—while in satirical or humorous contexts it paints characters in a vividly negative light, as seen when waiters are labeled “abusive rascals” [2] or an old woman is derided as “RIBIBE” [3], [4]. Poets like Alexander Pope use it to dismiss the work of detractors, referring to “abusive doggerel” [5], whereas novelists such as Dostoyevsky and Galsworthy employ the term to capture personal malice or even episodes of physical violence [6], [7], [8], [9]. This variety of usage demonstrates how “abusive” can simultaneously serve as a marker of intense personal insult and as a broader critique of societal or cultural phenomena, adapting in tone and meaning to fit the dramatic needs of differing narrative moments.
  1. Certainly this extension of totemism was abusive.
    — from The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life by Émile Durkheim
  2. The waiters at these places are invariably sturdy, fleet, abusive rascals, who cannot speak and will not listen to reason.
    — from Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, August 7, 1841 by Various
  3. RIBIBE, abusive term for an old woman.
    — from Every Man in His Humor by Ben Jonson
  4. RIBIBE, abusive term for an old woman.
    — from The Alchemist by Ben Jonson
  5. Pope had good reason to fear that the malice of his enemies might not be content to stop with abusive doggerel.
    — from The Rape of the Lock, and Other Poems by Alexander Pope
  6. he cried, suddenly changing his abusive tone for one of great courtesy.
    — from The Idiot by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
  7. But he's not a good husband to me—last night he hit me, and he was so dreadfully abusive.
    — from The Silver Box: A Comedy in Three Acts by John Galsworthy
  8. The old father had been [88] drunk and abusive and foul-tongued the whole of the wedding day and during the party in the evening.
    — from Short Stories by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
  9. He was very late, and he was most abusive.
    — from The Silver Box: A Comedy in Three Acts by John Galsworthy

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