different between usurial vs usurious

English

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation)¹ IPA^(key): /ju???u????l/
• (Received Pronunciation)² IPA^(key): /ju??zju????l/

Adjective

usurial (not comparable)

1. Pertaining to or constituting usury.
   • 1846: Baynard Rust Hall, Something for Every Body: Gleaned in the Old Purchase, from Fields Often Reaped, p194

     Nay, even if all was strictly honest at a fair — but all is not fair even at a fair — there is no small quantum of whitish mendacity — hem! — and not a little very clever humbugging and usurial screwing!

   • 1872: William Gifford Palgrave, Essays on Eastern questions, p157

     But their independence was lost centuries ago, and since that time commercial, and, I must add, usurial tendencies, with little aptitude for pastoral or agricultural pursuits, had been ever tending to remove them from the islands, and to accumulate them on coasts and in cities, often very far distant.

   • 1967: Joseph Buttinger, Vietnam: A Dragon Embattled, p106

     The rich borrowed large sums at the low interest rates set for the poor and passed the money on to their old clientele at the customary usurial rates.

   • 2004: Rudolf Rocker, Anarcho-Syndicalism: Theory and Practice, p5

     In this way capital is deprived of its usurial power and is completely bound up with the performance of work.

Synonyms

• usurious

Related terms

• usurer
• usuress

English

Etymology

usury +? -ous.

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ju???u????s/, /ju??zju????s/
• Hyphenation: usu?ri?ous

Adjective

usurious (comparative more usurious, superlative most usurious)

1. Of or pertaining to usury.
2. Exorbitant.
   • 1820, Charles Maturin, Melmoth the Wanderer, volume 1, page 298:

     But nature, violated by these excesses, exacts a most usurious interest for this illicit indulgence. She makes them pay for moments of rapture with hours of despair.

Quotations

• For more quotations using this term, see Citations:usurious.

Synonyms

• usurial

Related terms

• usurer
• usuress

Translations