usage

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See also: usagé

English

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English Wikipedia has an article on:
Wikipedia

Alternative forms

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Etymology

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

Pronunciation

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  • IPA(key): /ˈjuːsɪd͡ʒ/, /ˈjuːzɪd͡ʒ/
  • Audio (US):(file)

Noun

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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.]
    2. 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.]
    3. (now archaic) Action towards someone; treatment, especially in negative sense. [from 16th c.]

Derived terms

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Translations

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References

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  • “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

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French

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Etymology

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

Pronunciation

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Noun

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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

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See also

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Further reading

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Anagrams

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Middle French

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Noun

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usage m (plural usages)

  1. habit; custom

Old French

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Noun

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

  1. usage; use
  2. habit; custom