usury

1. 1.

   an exorbitant or unlawful rate of interest

   Synonymsvigorish

   Broaderinterest rate
2. 2.

   the act of lending money at an exorbitant rate of interest

   Broaderlending

Other forms of usury

plural

usuries·

Forms marked · are formed by the regular rule rather than recorded in the source data. English keeps a few hundred irregulars and the rest follow the pattern, so the rule is right far more often than not — but it is a rule, and the mark says so.

Questions about usury

What does usury mean?

usury means "an exorbitant or unlawful rate of interest". That is the primary sense; the word has 2 in total, listed in full on this page.

How many syllables are in usury?

usury has 3 syllables: u-su-ry. The stress falls on "u". In IPA it is /ˈjuʒɚi/.

What is another word for usury?

Close synonyms include vigorish. Each sense on this page lists its own synonyms, because a word with several meanings rarely has one substitute that works for all of them.

Is usury a common word?

usury is banded "Uncommon" — turns up in careful writing rather than conversation. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.