The phrase "abusive figure" is correct and usable in written English.
It can be used to describe a person who exerts harmful or controlling behavior, often in a relationship or authoritative context.
Example: "The protagonist struggles to escape the influence of an abusive figure in their life, which has caused them significant emotional pain."
Alternatives: "abusive person" or "toxic figure".
In "Family Tyranny" Mr. McCarthy is a mumbling, abusive father figure in lederhosen, and Kelley his cowering son.
It is intriguing, then, to contrast these two overlapping, but significantly differing, accounts of Brian Wilson's genius and his unravelling, including his long wilderness years as a patient of the rogue psychologist Eugene Landy, another domineering and abusive authority figure.
It's a dire conclusion for such a young person to reach, but it's not hard to see how he got to that point: after a childhood filled with poverty, drugs, and a series of abusive father figures, Jacob has landed in a juvenile detention center following a robbery attempt gone awry.
Jurors pointed to Duong's childhood in Vietnam surrounded by war, absent parents, abusive male figures and a constant, early exposure to crime and violence overseas and in Orange County.
Even as he told his classmates his tale of woe – a substory of an abusive father, a figure presented as vile but who, crucially, hasn't killed two teachers and threatened the lives of many, many more – I couldn't muster sympathy.
The company today already runs an Experiments Program for testing, as well as other tests, for example to curb abusive behavior, to figure out how to help the service run more smoothly.
Women are at significant risk of deadly violence when they separate from an abusive partner, the figures show.
But Priscilla is white and shrewd, her victim was black and abusive, and Sid figures he can con the press and pull off his cynical Roxie Hart defense of a poor, helpless, battered woman.
It is easier to believe that a woman "provoked" catastrophic violence from a supposedly otherwise peaceful man than it is to come to terms with the fact that a well-liked public figure is abusive.
The harsh specifics of his life and actions have gradually vanished, to be replaced by a rather generic narrative of a heroic figure defying abusive institutions and faceless enemies.
