used to

British  

/ juːst /

adjective

1. made familiar with; accustomed to

   I am used to hitchhiking

---

verb

1. (takes an infinitive or implied infinitive) used as an auxiliary to express habitual or accustomed actions, states, etc, taking place in the past but not continuing into the present

   I don't drink these days, but I used to

   I used to fish here every day

used to Idioms  

1. Accustomed or habituated to. This expression is often put as , as in I'm not used to driving a manual-shift car , or She can't get used to calling him Dad . [Early 1500s]

2. Formerly. This sense is used with a following verb to indicate a past state, as in I used to ride my bicycle to the post office , or This used to be the best restaurant in town . [Late 1800s]

---

Usage

The most common negative form of used to is didn't used to (or didn't use to ), but in formal contexts used not to is preferred

Example Sentences

This year, the MGU-H has been removed, and the rules forbid the MGU-K - the motor generator unit on the rear axle - from being used to assist at starts until the car reaches a certain speed.

From BBC

“The challenge is that some of the economics tools previously used to manage ‘cost of living’ challenges actually added to demand and inflation problem,” said Paul Bloxham, HSBC’s chief economist for Australia and New Zealand.

From The Wall Street Journal

Additional experiments in zebrafish were used to investigate the biological processes involved in the damage.

From Science Daily

And the plastics increasingly used to build and furnish homes derive from fossil fuels.

From BBC

The gold is stored in a vault run by the private company Wyoming Reserve inside a beige, single-story building that used to be the Casper Star-Tribune’s home.

From The Wall Street Journal