Crossword Dictionary

What's The Definition Of Usage?

\Us"age\, n. [F. usage, LL. usaticum. See {Use}.] 1. The act of using; mode of using or treating; treatment; conduct with respect to a person or a thing; as, good usage; ill usage; hard usage. My brother Is prisoner to the bishop here, at whose hands He hath good usage and great liberty. --Shak. 2. Manners; conduct; behavior. [Obs.] A gentle nymph was found, Hight Astery, excelling all the crew In courteous usage. --Spenser. 3. Long-continued practice; customary mode of procedure; custom; habitual use; method. --Chaucer. It has now been, during many years, the grave and decorous usage of Parliaments to hear, in respectful silence, all expressions, acceptable or unacceptable, which are uttered from the throne. --Macaulay. 4. Customary use or employment, as of a word or phrase in a particular sense or signification. 5. Experience. [Obs.] In eld [old age] is both wisdom and usage. --Chaucer. Syn: Custom; use; habit. Usage: {Usage}, {Custom}. These words, as here compared, agree in expressing the idea of habitual practice; but a custom is not necessarily a usage. A custom may belong to many, or to a single individual. A usage properly belongs to the great body of a people. Hence, we speak of usage, not of custom, as the law of language. Again, a custom is merely that which has been often repeated, so as to have become, in a good degree, established. A usage must be both often repeated and of long standing. Hence, we speak of a ``hew custom,'' but not of a ``new usage.'' Thus, also, the ``customs of society'' is not so strong an expression as the ``usages of society.'' ``Custom, a greater power than nature, seldom fails to make them worship.'' --Locke. ``Of things once received and confirmed by use, long usage is a law sufficient.'' --Hooker. In law, the words usage and custom are often used interchangeably, but the word custom also has a technical and restricted sense. See {Custom}, n., 3.