GNU Collaborative International Dictionary of English

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1.       
   Usage , n. [F. usage, LL. usaticum. See Use.]
   1913 Webster
   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.
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   My brother
   Is prisoner to the bishop here, at whose hands
   He hath good usage and great liberty.
   Shak.
   
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   Manners; conduct; behavior. [Obs.]
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   A gentle nymph was found,
   Hight Astery, excelling all the crew
   In courteous usage.
   Spenser.
   
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   Long-continued practice; customary mode of procedure; custom; habitual use; method.
   Chaucer.
   
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   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.
   
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   Customary use or employment, as of a word or phrase in a particular sense or signification.
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   Experience. [Obs.]
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   In eld [old age] is both wisdom and usage.
   Chaucer.
   
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   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.
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