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ILL-USED
| Pronunciation (US): |  | (GB): | |
I. (adjective)
Sense 1
Meaning:
(of persons) taken advantage of
Example:
after going out of his way to help his friend get the job he felt not appreciated but used
Synonyms:
exploited; ill-used; put-upon; used; victimised; victimized
Classified under:
Similar:
misused (used incorrectly or carelessly or for an improper purpose)
II. (verb)
Sense 1
Past simple / past participle of the verb ill-use
Context examples:
He’ll be vastly ill-used if you don’t let him have his own choice of conditions.
(Rodney Stone, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
I hope his letter does not breathe the spirit of an ill-used man.
(Persuasion, by Jane Austen)
Henry, I think so highly of Fanny Price, that if I could suppose the next Mrs. Crawford would have half the reason which my poor ill-used aunt had to abhor the very name, I would prevent the marriage, if possible; but I know you: I know that a wife you loved would be the happiest of women, and that even when you ceased to love, she would yet find in you the liberality and good-breeding of a gentleman.
(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)
Though I don't know that it's much of a peculiarity, either; for he has been ill-used enough, by some that bear it, to have a mortal antipathy for it, Heaven knows.
(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)
But what I mean is, that I hope there is nothing in Captain Wentworth's manner of writing to make you suppose he thinks himself ill-used by his friend, which might appear, you know, without its being absolutely said.
(Persuasion, by Jane Austen)
But, finding you true gold, a very lady, and an ill-used innocent, with a fresh heart full of love and trustfulness—which you look like, and is quite consistent with your story!
(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)
She would not, upon any account, mention her having met with him the second time; luckily Mary did not much attend to their having passed close by him in their earlier walk, but she would have felt quite ill-used by Anne's having actually run against him in the passage, and received his very polite excuses, while she had never been near him at all; no, that cousinly little interview must remain a perfect secret.
(Persuasion, by Jane Austen)
I was not actively ill-used.
(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)
She was entreated to give them as much of her time as possible, invited for every day and all day long, or rather claimed as part of the family; and, in return, she naturally fell into all her wonted ways of attention and assistance, and on Charles's leaving them together, was listening to Mrs Musgrove's history of Louisa, and to Henrietta's of herself, giving opinions on business, and recommendations to shops; with intervals of every help which Mary required, from altering her ribbon to settling her accounts; from finding her keys, and assorting her trinkets, to trying to convince her that she was not ill-used by anybody; which Mary, well amused as she generally was, in her station at a window overlooking the entrance to the Pump Room, could not but have her moments of imagining.
(Persuasion, by Jane Austen)
Mr. Mell was ill-used.
(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)
