English

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