The phrase "abused words" is correct and usable in written English.
It can be used to describe words that have been overused, misused, or have lost their original meaning due to excessive or inappropriate application.
Example: "In today's society, many phrases have become abused words, losing their impact and significance over time."
Alternatives: "overused terms" or "misused expressions".
However, none of all the other misused, confused, overused and downright abused words (arguably, effectively, ironically) comes close to poor old icon and iconic - words stripped of all meaning by tedious repetition.
What has been happening for the past couple of years may have started with a panic, but it is not one any more.But, to be fair to him, nor is it a crisis, which is one of the most consistently abused words in journalese.
Mac: Like "soul", "passion"... Morrissey: "Synthesisers"... Mac: And "love", that has to be the most abused word ever.
The Guardian style guide says of "refute": use this much abused word only when an argument is disproved.
He is only in the contest because some patronising colleagues nominated him on the basis it would be good for 'debate' (fast becoming the most abused word in politics).
Innovation is an overused and abused word in the technology industry but if you strip it down to the basic principle of "new ideas", it's clear that there's a lot of it going on in mobile games.
In writing a book about Schubert's Winterreise, I had wanted to do two things: to understand how this crucial work emerged from its own time and was transmitted through history to speak to us now; and to convey the piece's currently and vitality – its "relevance", to use a much abused word – to readers who might never have heard it.
'Zeitgeist' is a very abused word, but it has a weight and importance, and it will be a major achievement if we can put together a set of work that successfully explores the ideas we are all cooking up at the moment".
In the absence of an integrative narrative -- if ideology is too much of an abused word -- the elites in the respective republics of former Yugoslavia had little recourse to anything else.
Empowerment [ 1- 4] is a frequently used and sometimes abused word entailing an ideal increasing in popularity and application in many domains and particularly in health [ 5, 6].
By its end the play pulses with the possibility of redemption, if I may use a much-abused word.
