| Usage | n. [ F. usage, LL. usaticum. See Use. ] [ 1913 Webster ] 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. [ 1913 Webster ] My brother
Is prisoner to the bishop here, at whose hands
He hath good usage and great liberty. Shak. [ 1913 Webster ] 2. Manners; conduct; behavior. [ Obs. ] [ 1913 Webster ] A gentle nymph was found,
Hight Astery, excelling all the crew
In courteous usage. Spenser. [ 1913 Webster ] 3. Long-continued practice; customary mode of procedure; custom; habitual use; method. Chaucer. [ 1913 Webster ] 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. [ 1913 Webster ] 4. Customary use or employment, as of a word or phrase in a particular sense or signification. [ 1913 Webster ] 5. Experience. [ Obs. ] [ 1913 Webster ] In eld [ old age ] is both wisdom and usage. Chaucer. [ 1913 Webster ] Syn. -- Custom; use; habit. -- 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. [ 1913 Webster ] [ 1913 Webster ] |
