# usage
## English
### Alternative forms

* usuage (obsolete)

### Etymology

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

### Pronunciation

* IPA: /ˈjuːsɪd͡ʒ/, /ˈjuːzɪd͡ʒ/
* Audio (US):(file)

### Noun

usage (countable and uncountable, plural usages)
* Habit, practice.
** 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.
** (uncountable) Custom, tradition. [from 14th c.]
* Utilization.
** 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.
** 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.]
** (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

* ill-usage
* usage dictionary
* usage guide
* usage label
* usage lexicography
* usage note
* usage panel
* usage share

#### 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
### Etymology

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

### Pronunciation

* IPA: /y.zaʒ/
* Audio:(file)

### Noun

usage m (plural usages)
* usage, use
* (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
### Noun

usage m (plural usages)
* habit; custom

## Old French
### Noun

usage oblique singular, m (oblique plural usages, nominative singular usages, nominative plural usage)
* usage; use
* habit; custom