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usage |
3 definitions found From Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913) [web1913]: 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. From WordNet r 1.6 [wn]: usage n 1: the act of using; "the steps were worn from years of use" [syn: {use}, {utilization}, {utilisation}, {employment}, {exercise}] 2: accepted practice [syn: {custom}] From THE DEVIL'S DICTIONARY ((C)1911 Released April 15 1993) [devils]: USAGE, n. The First Person of the literary Trinity, the Second and Third being Custom and Conventionality. Imbued with a decent reverence for this Holy Triad an industrious writer may hope to produce books that will live as long as the fashion.
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