usage definition

English usage definition

Alternative forms

• usuage (obsolete)

Etymology

From Middle English usage, from Anglo-Norman and Old French usage.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈjuːsɪd͡ʒ/, /ˈjuːzɪd͡ʒ/

• Audio (US)

  (file)

Noun

usage (countable and uncountable, plural usages)

1. Habit, practice.
   1. A custom or established practice. [from 14th c.]
      • 1792, James Boswell, in Danziger & Brady (eds.), Boswell: The Great Biographer (Journals 1789–1795), Yale 1989, p. 170:

        [S]everal young people sung sacred music in the churchyard at night, which it seems is an usage here.

      • 1846 October 1 – 1848 April 1, Charles Dickens, Dombey and Son, London: Bradbury and Evans, […], published 1848, →OCLC:

        Mrs. Wickam, agreeably to the usage of some ladies in her condition, pursued […] the subject, without any compunction.

   2. (uncountable) Custom, tradition. [from 14th c.]
2. Utilization.
   1. The act of using something; use, employment. [from 14th c.]
   3. The established custom of using language; the ways and contexts in which spoken and written words are used, especially by a certain group of people or in a certain region. [from 14th c.]
   4. (now archaic) Action towards someone; treatment, especially in negative sense. [from 16th c.]
      • 1596, Edmund Spenser, “Book IV, Canto IV”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC:

        Whose sharp provokement them incenst so sore, / That both were bent t'avenge his usage base […]

      • 1693, [John Locke], “§115”, in Some Thoughts Concerning Education, London: […] A[wnsham] and J[ohn] Churchill, […], →OCLC:

        Satisfy a child by a constant course of your care and kindness, that you perfectly love him, and he may by degrees be accustom'd to bear very painful and rough usage from you, without flinching or complaining

Derived terms

Translations

References

• “usage” in R.R.K. Hartmann and Gregory James, Dictionary of Lexicography, Routledge, 1998.
• Sydney I. Landau (2001), Dictionaries: The Art and Craft of Lexicography, 2nd ed., Cambridge University Press, p 217.

Anagrams

• Gause, agues, gause, suage

French usage definition

Etymology

From Latin ūsus + -age. Compare Medieval Latin usagium.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /y.zaʒ/

• audio

  (file)

Noun

usage m (plural usages)

1. usage, use
2. (lexicography) the ways and contexts in which spoken and written words are actually used, determined by a lexicographer's intuition or from corpus analysis (as opposed to correct or proper use of language, proclaimed by some authority)

Derived terms

• d’usage
• en usage
• faire usage
• hors d’usage

Related terms

• usager

See also

• descriptif, normatif

Further reading

• “usage”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.

Anagrams

• auges, sauge, suage

Middle French usage definition

Noun

usage m (plural usages)

1. habit; custom

Old French usage definition

Noun

usage m (oblique plural usages, nominative singular usages, nominative plural usage)

1. usage; use
2. habit; custom