Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun Custom; usage.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun Custom; usage.
  • noun That to which one is accustomed; habitual association; companionship.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun rare Custom, habit; usage.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun Custom, familiarity.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun a custom or usage that has acquired the force of law

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English, from Latin cōnsuētūdō; see custom.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Old French consuetude or directly from Latin cōnsuētūdō ("custom"), from cōnsuēscō ("accustom, habituate; accustom oneself"), corresponding to con- ("with") + suēscō ("become accustomed").

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Examples

  • Then came nepenthe and scholium, aleatoric and consuetude.

    Pool of National Spelling Bee competitors whittled down to 48 2010

  • Mont – Fitchet, “the stain hath become engrained by time and consuetude; let thy reformation be cautious, as it is just and wise.”

    Ivanhoe 2004

  • And therefore, least by over-long consuetude, something should take life, which might be converted to a bad construction, and by our country demourance for so many dayes, some captious conceit may wrest out an ill imagination; I am of the minde (if yours be the like) seeing each of us hath had the honor, which now remaineth still on me: that it is very fitting for us, to returne thither from whence we came.

    The Decameron 2004

  • I remember myself to have so done, and _that is my common consuetude when anything pierceth or toucheth my heart_.

    John Knox A. Taylor Innes

  • Pro quo Caesar hanc [Greek letter: digamma rotated 90 degress] figuram scribi voluit, quod quamvis illi recte visum est tamen consuetude antiqua superavit.

    The Roman Pronunciation of Latin Why we use it and how to use it Frances Ellen Lord

  • For the present he swept the skies leisurely, feasting on the infinite wonders which no consuetude could render commonplace.

    The Mayor of Warwick Herbert M��ller Hopkins 1890

  • Trembling the while, Ogger, who knew by experience what were the power and might of Charles, and who had learned the lesson by long consuetude in better days, then said, 'When ye shall behold the crops shaking for fear in the fields, and the gloomy Po and the Ticino overflowing the walls of the city with their waves blackened with steel

    The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 04 Rossiter Johnson 1885

  • The consent, say they, of realmes and lawes pronounced and admitted in this behalfe, long consuetude and custorne, together with felicitie of some women in their empires haue established their authoritie.

    The First Blast of the Trumpet Against the Monstrous Regiment of Women. 1514-1572 1878

  • The consent, say they, of realmes and lawes pronounced and admitted in this behalfe, long consuetude and custorne, together with felicitie of some women in their empires haue established their authoritie [144].

    The First Blast of the Trumpet against the monstrous regiment of Women John Knox 1874

  • Our Constitution, consecrated by the callous consuetude of sixty years, and grasped in triumphant argument by the left hand of him whose right hand clutches the clotted slave-whip.

    The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell James Russell Lowell 1855

Comments

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  • Though once a dainty ankle viewed

    Was thought unspeakably lewd,

    Now limbs can go bare

    And no one will stare

    It's all the effect of consuetude.

    March 13, 2017