usurp

From Middle English usurpen, from Old French usurper, from Latin ūsūrpō.

• (General American) IPA^(key): /juˈsɝp/
• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /juːˈzɜːp/

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• Rhymes: -ɜː(ɹ)p

usurp (third-person singular simple present usurps, present participle usurping, simple past and past participle usurped)

1. To seize power from another, usually by illegitimate means.
   • 1674, John Milton, “Book XII”, in Paradise Lost. , 2nd edition, London: S Simmons , →OCLC, page 326:

     o he dies,
     But soon revives, Death over him no power
     Shall long usurp […]

2. To use and assume the coat of arms of another person.
3. To take the place rightfully belonging to someone or something else.
   • c. 1619–1623, John Ford, “The Lawes of Candy”, in Comedies and Tragedies , London: Humphrey Robinson, , and for Humphrey Moseley , published 1647, →OCLC, Act I, scene ii, page 52, column 1:

     But if now / You ſhould (as cruell fathers do) proclame / Your right, and Tyrant like uſurp the glory / Of my peculiar honours, not deriv'd / From ſucceſſary, but purchas'd with my bloud, / Then I muſt ſtand firſt Champion for my ſelfe, / Againſt all interpoſers.

   • 1749, Henry Fielding, The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling, volume (please specify |volume=I to VI), London: A Millar, , →OCLC:

     Jones answered all his questions with much civility, though he never remembered to have seen the petty-fogger before; and though he concluded, from the outward appearance and behaviour of the man, that he usurped a freedom with his betters, to which he was by no means intitled.

4. (obsolete) To make use of.
   • 1653, Henry More, “appendix”, in An Antidote against Atheisme, or An Appeal to the Natural Faculties of the Minde of Man, whether There Be Not a God, London: Roger Daniel, , →OCLC:

     " […] especially considering that even Matter it self, in which they tumble and wallow, which they feel with their hands and usurp with all their Senses […] "

• usurpation
• usurper

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