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Abuse is the treatment of things, alive or inanimate, outside of their respective normal use cases that is likely to result in significant damage to that object or individual. General wear and tear does not pass the “significant” qualifier and usually occurs normally even inside of the person's or object's normal use case. Abuse does not necessitate intent nor does it require any damage to actually occur, but if an intent to harm is present this can be the basis for a legal case against the abuser.1) From an ethics standpoint, abuse should always be avoided where there are better alternatives. In ethics, we will primarily care about patterns of abuse. Everyone may be abusive to someone at some point in their life and humans are good at shrugging off individual blows. Real damage will usually occur if the abuse occurs in a pattern, ie. it happens repeatedly.2)
Abuse comes in many flavors, but the most prominent are emotional, physical (which is an extension of the first one) and then types I will dub “secondary abuse types” because they generally are things that cause harm either emotionally or physically and only differ in their expression, such as sexual and neglect.
Abuse vectors - About emotional and physical abuse
The most subtle, often overlooked but - in my opinion - the most important factor of abuse happens mentally, emotionally. Humans exist in their respective brains and their lives are primarily determined by the things they feel. How we feel about ourselves and our life depends on how we, well, feel, and if we are made to feel bad then we, well, feel bad. This may appear silly at first, but is actually a very important and central point to keep in mind when looking at abuse. Any kind of hurt is essentially a feeling, even just physical hurt is just a feeling in our bodies, so if we can avoid being hurt then this involves our emotions and our feelings in general. Whether something hurts us depends on our brains and can be altered. Painkillers for example might lessen or completely remove pain. Pain, hurt and suffering are all things that happen in our brains, and physical pain is no different in our brain from emotional pain. Physical and emotional suffering are both essentially “just” signals in our brains.
The point I am making is that emotional abuse and physical abuse are the same thing. The distinction is not in the mechanisms of the abuse inside of the brain, it's about how this abuse is delivered. Both hurt, but inducing suffering in another person can be achieved in different ways and this is usually what we mean when we say “emotional abuse” and “physical abuse”. It's the causing of suffering, either by affecting your emotions or by inflicting direct physical pain, although internally the processes in the brain are not different from each other. Physical abuse in this context simply means things like hitting a person, spanking children - oh no this is an entirely different topic, let's not start - and often naturally involves emotional abuse. Assault like this is usually an outburst, an expression of contempt, of superiority and control (a message of “I can do this to you and you are defenseless against me”) which hurts much more than the actual, physical pain being inflicted. The rejection and abandonment is the primary abuse taking place in those moments.
So the problem then is that such rejection and abandonment can be communicated in many ways and does never necessitate physical force. In fact, because emotional abuse in this sense is so under-recognized, it is extremely prevalent and often overlooked.