usage

Definitions

1. 1.Manners; conduct; behavior. [Obs.] A gentle nymph was found, Hight Astery, excelling all the crew In courteous usage. Spenser.
2. 2.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.
3. 3.Customary use or employment, as of a word or phrase in a particular sense or signification.
4. 4.Experience. [Obs.] In eld [old age] is both wisdom and usage. Chaucer. -- 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.

Source: Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913 edition (public domain, via GCIDE / Project Gutenberg).

Synonyms

Related questions

• What does "usage" mean?
• What is another word for "usage"?

Reverse-dictionary questions

Definition-first questions whose answer is usage.

• What is manners; conduct; behavior. [Obs.] A gentle nymph was found, Hight Astery, excelling all the crew In courteous usage. Spenser called?
• What is customary use or employment, as of a word or phrase in a particular sense or signification called?