Word Meanings - USAGE - Book Publishers vocabulary database

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.

Additional info about word: USAGE

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. 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. In eld is both wisdom and usage. Chaucer. 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.

Possible synonyms: (Same meaning words of USAGE)

• Custom
• Manner
• habit
• use
• usage
• fashion
• practice
• prescription
• Fashion
• Form
• shape
• guise
• style
• appearance
• character
• figure
• mould
• mode
• custom
• manner
• way
• ceremony
• Practice
• Usage
• exercise
• experience
• exercitation
• action
• performance
• Rite
• observance
• celebration
• Vogue
• Way
• repute

Possible antonyms: (opposite words of USAGE)

• Rest
• ease
• disuse
• respite
• relax
• recreate
• Evade
• escape
• miss
• lose
• Pervert
• distort
• misadapt
• misdelineate
• derange
• discompose
• misconstrue
• misproduce
• caricature

Related words: (words related to USAGE)

• CHARACTERISTIC
  Pertaining to, or serving to constitute, the character; showing the character, or distinctive qualities or traits, of a person or thing; peculiar; distinctive. Characteristic clearness of temper. Macaulay.
• DERANGER
  One who deranges.
• EXPERIENCED
  Taught by practice or by repeated observations; skillful or wise by means of trials, use, or observation; as, an experienced physician, workman, soldier; an experienced eye. The ablest and most experienced statesmen. Bancroft.
• DERANGEMENT
  The act of deranging or putting out of order, or the state of being deranged; disarrangement; disorder; confusion; especially, mental disorder; insanity. Syn. -- Disorder; confusion; embarrassment; irregularity; disturbance; insanity;
• CHARACTER
  1. A distinctive mark; a letter, figure, or symbol. It were much to be wished that there were throughout the world but one sort of character for each letter to express it to the eye. Holder. 2. Style of writing or printing; handwriting;
• HABITURE
  Habitude.
• RELAXANT
  A medicine that relaxes; a laxative.
• SHAPE
  is from the strong verb, AS. scieppan, scyppan, sceppan, p. p. 1. To form or create; especially, to mold or make into a particular form; to give proper form or figure to. I was shapen in iniquity. Ps. li. 5. Grace shaped her limbs, and
• STYLET
  A small poniard; a stiletto. An instrument for examining wounds and fistulas, and for passing setons, and the like; a probe, -- called also specillum. A stiff wire, inserted in catheters or other tubular instruments to maintain their shape
• DERANGED
  Disordered; especially, disordered in mind; crazy; insane. The story of a poor deranged parish lad. Lamb.
• FASHION-MONGERING
  Behaving like a fashion-monger. Shak.
• FASHIONED
  Having a certain style or fashion; as old-fashioned; new- fashioned.
• FASHION-MONGER
  One who studies the fashions; a fop; a dandy. Marston.
• HABITED
  1. Clothed; arrayed; dressed; as, he was habited like a shepherd. 2. Fixed by habit; accustomed. So habited he was in sobriety. Fuller. 3. Inhabited. Another world, which is habited by the ghosts of men and women. Addison.
• FASHIONABLY
  In a fashionable manner.
• VOGUE
  vogare to row, to sail; probably fr. OHG. wag to move, akin to E. 1. The way or fashion of people at any particular time; temporary mode, custom, or practice; popular reception for the time; -- used now generally in the phrase in vogue. One vogue,
• EXERCISE
  exercitum, to drive on, keep, busy, prob. orig., to thrust or drive 1. The act of exercising; a setting in action or practicing; employment in the proper mode of activity; exertion; application; use; habitual activity; occupation, in
• ACTION
  Effective motion; also, mechanism; as, the breech action of a gun. (more info) 1. A process or condition of acting or moving, as opposed to rest; the doing of something; exertion of power or force, as when one body acts on another; the effect of
• CHARACTERISM
  A distinction of character; a characteristic. Bp. Hall.
• RELAXATIVE
  Having the quality of relaxing; laxative. -- n.
• INHABITATE
  To inhabit.
• ARAEOSTYLE
  See INTERCOLUMNIATION
• MOLDINESS; MOULDINESS
  The state of being moldy.
• MOLDER; MOULDER
  One who, or that which, molds or forms into shape; specifically , one skilled in the art of making molds for castings.
• CYCLOSTYLE
  A contrivance for producing manifold copies of writing or drawing. The writing or drawing is done with a style carrying a small wheel at the end which makes minute punctures in the paper, thus converting it into a stencil. Copies are transferred
• SPINDLE-SHAPED
  Thickest in the middle, and tapering to both ends; fusiform; -- applied chiefly to roots. (more info) 1. Having the shape of a spindle.
• ACCUSTOMARILY
  Customarily.
• HOOD MOLDING; HOOD MOULDING
  A projecting molding over the head of an arch, forming the outermost member of the archivolt; -- called also hood mold.
• COHABITER
  A cohabitant. Hobbes.
• DIAMOND-SHAPED
  Shaped like a diamond or rhombus.
• STRAP-SHAPED
  Shaped like a strap; ligulate; as, a strap-shaped corolla.
• INHABITATIVENESS
  A tendency or propensity to permanent residence in a place or abode; love of home and country.
• MOLD; MOULD
  mulm, OHG. molt, molta, Icel. mold, Dan. muld, Sw. mull, Goth. mulda, prevalent spelling is, perhaps, mould; but as the u has not been inserted in the other words of this class, as bold, gold, old, cold, etc., it seems desirable to complete the
• REACTIONIST
  A reactionary. C. Kingsley.