usance

American  

[yoo-zuhns] / ˈju zəns /

noun

1. Commerce. a length of time, exclusive of days of grace and varying in different places, allowed by custom or usage for the payment of foreign bills of exchange.

2. Economics. the income of benefits of every kind derived from the ownership of wealth.

3. Archaic.

   1. use.

   2. custom; habit.

4. Obsolete. usury.

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usance British  

/ ˈjuːzəns /

noun

1. commerce the period of time permitted by commercial usage for the redemption of foreign bills of exchange

2. rare unearned income

3. an obsolete word for usage usury use

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Etymology

Origin of usance

1350–1400; Middle English usaunce < Old French usance, probably < Medieval Latin ūsantia, derivative of Latin ūsant- (stem of ūsāns ), present participle of ūsāre to use; see -ance

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

usance

The customer himself who buys cotton in Bombay, or wherever it may be, acts according to the custom there to draw a bill to a certain usance.

From Readings in Money and Banking Selected and Adapted by Chester Arthur Phillips

The usance of wealth and the service of laborers at the moment rendered constitute forms of income.

From Modern Economic Problems Economics Volume II by Frank Albert Fetter

Equally good house usance would cost more in nearly all towns, and much more in larger cities.

From Modern Economic Problems Economics Volume II by Frank Albert Fetter

He it was who prepared their bonds and contracts, and placed out their ill-gotten gains at exorbitant usance.

From The Star-Chamber, Volume 1 An Historical Romance by William Harrison Ainsworth

Everything in it, tolerable or intolerable, will have but one use; and that use what our ancestors used to call usance or usury.

From Utopia of Usurers and Other Essays by G. K. (Gilbert Keith) Chesterton