usage : Dictionary / Wörterbuch (BEOLINGUS, TU Chemnitz)

English Dictionary: usage	by the DICT Development Group
2 results for usage
From WordNet (r) 3.0 (2006) [wn]:
usage n the act of using; "he warned against the use of narcotic drugs"; "skilled in the utilization of computers" Synonym(s): use, usage, utilization, utilisation, employment, exercise accepted or habitual practice Synonym(s): custom, usage, usance the customary manner in which a language (or a form of a language) is spoken or written; "English usage"; "a usage borrowed from French"
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 [bd]hew custom,[b8] but not of a [bd]new usage.[b8] Thus, also, the [bd]customs of society[b8] is not so strong an expression as the [bd]usages of society.[b8] [bd]Custom, a greater power than nature, seldom fails to make them worship.[b8] --Locke. [bd]Of things once received and confirmed by use, long usage is a law sufficient.[b8] --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.