Wiktionary

usage

See also: usagé

English

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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.]
      • 2025 February 19, 'Industry Insider', “South West boost”, in RAIL, number 1029, page 68, about the Falmouth branch:
        Demand continues to increase, and in 2023-24 recorded usage was higher than pre-COVID, with 384,000 passenger journeys in total (of which 247,000 were at the town location). At the other end of the branch, Truro station had usage of 1.19 million, of which 255,000 were recorded as interchange passengers.
    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.]

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

  1. usage; use
  2. habit; custom
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