I am pretty much in line with Rogue's view - but there should be a clarification and an addendum. In a sustained relationship between two or more people - you can have 'emotional abuse', part of which can be words and in some cases the absence of words. This needs to be differentiated from an instance of someone saying something offensive to a stranger either in public or online. It is the sustained nature and the relationship between two people in which words (or their absence) can be given incredible power to affect human psychology. That is particularly true of children and I have, across my career, seen some horrific instances of emotional abuse using words/silence.

When we start referring to isolated incidents of people disagreeing with each other as 'abuse', then we cheapen what this word means in practice. We have done the same thing with the word 'trauma' - a word which carries specific connotations for mental health but is now used at random and with reckless abandon.

To summarise, verbal and emotional abuse are very real and very devastating; but the phrase has been hijacked by those who wish to utilise it in circumstances where it is not applicable. Many people have said very nasty things to me about my writing and that has bounced off like water off a Penguin's feathers.... if the Significant Other Penguin started to repeatedly tell me they thought my work was indicative of what a worthless person I am - and this was sustained across a period of time where I could not escape... that'd be emotional abuse. It still wouldn't be violence. :o)