Usage

n.	1.
	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. 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. 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. In eld [old age] is both wisdom and usage. - Chaucer.

Noun	1.	usage - the act of using; "he warned against the use of narcotic drugs"; "skilled in the utilization of computers" Synonyms: use, utilisation, utilization, exercise, employment
	2.	usage - accepted or habitual practice Synonyms: custom, usance

USAGE. Long and uniform practice. In its most extensive meaning this term includes custom and prescription, though it differs from them in a narrower sense, it is applied to the habits, modes, and course of dealing which are observed in trade generally, as to all mercantile transactions, or to some particular branches of trade.
     2. Usage of trade does not require to be immemorial to establish it; if it be known, certain, uniform, reasonable, and not contrary to law, it is sufficient. But evidence of a few instances that such a thing has been done does not establish a usage. 3 Watts, 178; 3 Wash. C. C. R. 150; 1 Gallis. 443; 5 Binn. 287; 9 Pick. 426; 4 B. & Ald. 210; 7 Pet. 1; 2 Wash. C. C. R. 7.
     3. The usages of trade afford ground upon which a proper construction may be given to contracts. By their aid the indeterminate intention of parties and the nature and extent of their contracts arising from mere implications or presumptions, and act of an equivocal character may be ascertained; and the meaning of words and doubtful expressions may become known. 2 Mete. 65; 2 Sumn. 569; 2 G. & J. 136; 13 Pick. 182; Story on Ag. Sec. 77; 2 Kent, Com. 662, 3d ed.; 5 Wheat. 326; 2 Car. & P. 525; 3 B. & Ald. 728; Park. on Ins. 30; 1 Marsh. Ins. 186, n. 20; 1 Caines, 45 Gilp. 356, 486; 1 Edw. Ch. R. 146; 1 N. & M. 519; 15 Mass. 433; 1 Rill, R. 270; Wright, R. 573; Pet. C. C. R. 230; 5 Hamm. 436 6 Pet. 715; 2 Pet. 148; 6 Porter, 123 1 Hall, 612; 9 Mass. 155; 9 Wheat. 582 11 Wheat. 430; 1 Pet. 25, 89.
     4. Courts will not readily adopt these usages, because they are not unfrequently founded in mistake. 2 Sumn. 377. See 3 Chitt. Pr. 55; Story, Confl. of Laws, Sec. 270; 1 Dall. 178; Vaugh. 169, 383; Bouv. Inst. Index, h.t.

acceptance, acceptation, acception, active use, adjectival phrase, antonym, appliance, application, articulation, automatism, bad habit, bon ton, care, ceremony, characteristic, choice, choice of words, clause, composition, conformity, construction, consuetude, consumption, convenance, convention, creature of habit, custodianship, dialect, diction, employ, employment, established way, etiquette, exercise, exertion, expression, fashion, folkway, force of habit, form, formality, formulation, free form, good use, grammar, guidance, guiding, habit, habit pattern, habitude, handling, hard usage, hard use, headed group, homograph, homonym, homophone, idiom, idiotism, ill use, language, langue, lead, lexeme, lingo, lingua, linguistic form, locution, logos, management, manipulation, manner, manner of speaking, manners, means of dealing, metonym, minimum free form, misuse, monosyllable, mores, noun phrase, observance, operation, paragraph, parlance, parole, pattern, peculiar expression, peculiarity, period, personal usage, phrasal idiom, phrase, phraseology, phrasing, polysyllable, praxis, preference, prescription, procedure, proceeding, process, proper thing, received meaning, rhetoric, ritual, rough usage, routine, second nature, sentence, set phrase, social convention, speech, standard behavior, standard phrase, standard usage, standing custom, stereotype, stereotyped behavior, stewardship, syllable, synonym, syntactic structure, talk, term, time-honored practice, tongue, tradition, trick, turn of expression, turn of phrase, use of words, using up, usus loquendi, utterance, verb complex, verb phrase, verbalism, verbiage, verbum, vocable, way, way of speaking, what is done, wont, wonting, word, word-group, wordage, wording, wrong use