usury
[yoo-zhuh-ree]
- the lending or practice of lending money at an exorbitant interest.
- an exorbitant amount or rate of interest, especially in excess of the legal rate.
- Obsolete. interest paid for the use of money.
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Origin of usury
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2018
Examples from the Web for usury
Contemporary Examples
On January 29, Francis referred to usury as “a dramatic social ill.”
There's a reason for the biblical bans on usury: in a zero-growth world, lending money at interest is quite likely to ruin people.
Don't Have Enough to Worry About? Here's One More Thing: Low Growth May be Here to Stay.Megan McArdle
March 4, 2013
Biblical and Islamic bans on "usury" (lending money at interest) strike most modern people as pretty silly.
Historical Examples
You have been lending money on usury too, and on a bad security.
The ChristianHall Caine
She wanted to pay him with usury for his cool, hard disdain.
The HighgraderWilliam MacLeod Raine
His words are to be taken literally; all that He promises He gives with usury.
Celebrated Travels and TravellersJules Verne
Thus we see that the divell is the planter, and the father of usury.
On the Old Road, Vol. 2 (of 2)John Ruskin
Charlemagne, in France, forbid the taking of usury either by priests or laity.
UsuryCalvin Elliott
usury
- the act or practice of loaning money at an exorbitant rate of interest
- an exorbitant or unlawfully high amount or rate of interest
- obsolete moneylending
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Word Origin
C14: from Medieval Latin ūsūria, from Latin ūsūra usage, from ūsus use
Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition
© William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins
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Word Origin and History for usury
n.
c.1300, from Medieval Latin usuria, from Latin usura "usury, interest," from usus, from stem of uti (see use (v.)). Originally the practice of lending money at interest, later, at excessive rates of interest.
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Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas Harper
usury
[(yooh-zhuh-ree)]
The practice of charging more than the legal interest rate.
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The New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, Third Edition
Copyright © 2005 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.