usurp

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English usurpen,^[2][3][4] borrowed from Old French usurper,^{[5][6][3][4][7]} also Anglo-Norman usorper,^[2] from Latin ūsūrpō (“to seize for use, to use, to employ”),^[5][6][8] which in later Latin also meant to assume unlawfully.^[6][9] The OED dates the Old French verb to the 14th century,^[5] but the Anglo-Norman verb is recorded from 1278.^[10] The Latin verb is also the source of Italian usurpare, Spanish usurpar and Portuguese usurpar.^[5] It is usually analysed as formed from the ablative of ūsus (“use”) and rapiō (“to seize”),^[11][12][8] as if from an unattested adjective *ūsūrapos,^[9][4] that is, "seize for one's own use".^[13] Skeat called the rest of the word obscure and cited Brugmann's suggestion of this analysis,^[14] and Ayto and Collins give the analysis as only probable.^[13][15] The American Heritage Dictionary refers the word to Proto-Indo-European *reup-.^[3]

Earliest recorded meaning

To appropriate a right or privilege wrongfully, and to deprive someone of a possession: before 1325, in the Statutes of the Realm.^[5][4] Etymonline likewise has "assert falsely one's right" for the early 14th century.^[6]

Semantic evolution

The Middle English Dictionary records both taking something wrongfully and taking it for one's own use;^[2] from about 1412 the word could mean to use something that is not properly one's own.^[5] The sense of seizing territory or rule appears about 1400,^[5][6] and in 1447 Bokenham used it of forcing one's way into a high office.^[5] Chaucer has the verb once, in the sense of claiming falsely.^[16] From 1531 it could mean to take a word from another language or source, and after 1549 also to assume a name or title.^[5] Later uses are extended: of occupying a place physically (1635), and of a feeling that takes hold of the mind (1749).^[5] Johnson (1755) defined it as to possess by force or intrusion, or without right.^[17] A noun usurp, usurpation, is recorded once, before 1647.^[5]

Timeline

• before 1325 – to appropriate a right wrongfully; to oust a person.^[5][4]
• c. 1400 – to seize territory, or assume rule over it unjustly.^[5][6]
• c. 1412 – to steal (obsolete by 1643); to use something not one's own.^[5]
• 1447 – to force one's way into an office or position.^[5]
• c. 1485 – to inflict injury or cruelty (obsolete by 1700).^[5]
• 1531 – to borrow a word from another language.^[5]
• 1549 – to assume a name or title.^[5]
• 1635 – to occupy or encroach on a place physically.^[5]
• 1749 – of a feeling, to take possession of the mind.^[5]

Meanings

Verb

1. To seize and hold a throne, office, power or right by force or without any legal claim: The general usurped the presidency.^[15][11][5]
2. To take over land or other property unlawfully.^[15][18][5]
3. To take the place of someone or something; to supplant: Television usurped the radio's place in the living room.^[18][5]
4. (archaic) To use something wrongly, or to borrow a word from another language or source.^[18][5]
5. (rare) Intransitive: to rule or act as a usurper.^[18]
6. (obsolete, c. 1412–1643) To obtain by trickery or violence; to steal.^[5][18]
7. (obsolete, c. 1485–1700) To inflict injury or cruelty.^[5][18]

Word family

• usurper
• usurpingly
• usurpation
• nonusurping

Related words

• rape
• raptor
• ravish
• use
• utility
• rapture
• rapid

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
3. ^ a b c The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
4. ^ a b c d e Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ a b c d e f Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
7. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
8. ^ a b Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
9. ^ a b Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
10. ^ Anglo-Norman Dictionary (AND2), Aberystwyth University, anglo-norman.net (2nd ed., 2005–)
11. ^ a b Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
12. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
13. ^ a b Ayto, John (2005), Word Origins: The Secret Histories of English Words from A to Z, 2nd ed., London: A & C Black
14. ^ Skeat, Walter W. (1911), A Concise Etymological Dictionary of the English Language, new ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
15. ^ a b c Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
16. ^ Benson, Larry D., Glossarial Concordance to Middle English (Chaucer, Gower), Johns Hopkins University, github.com/jhu-digital-manuscripts/gcme
17. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
18. ^ a b c d e f Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press