USAGES
Noun
usages
plural of usage
Anagrams
• Gauses, gauses, suages
Source: Wiktionary
USAGE
Us"age, n. Etym: [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, 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.
Source: Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary 1913 Edition