The article is devoted to the investigation of the essence of right abuse. The author comes to conclusion that there is no mutual understanding of abuse of right in law science. In the author's opinion, the existing approaches to the analysis of the category of abuse of right make use objective criteria (limits on the exercise of right, destination of right, good morals) which aren't able to reveal the essence of the phenomenon. The conclusion that the essence of abuse of right is defined by its subjective side is proved. It is offered to use the category of interest for describe the subjective side of abuse of right.