usance

u•sance (YOO-zuhns)  n

Definition:
1. a length of time, exclusive of days of grace and varying in different places, allowed by custom or usage for the payment of foreign bills of exchange (commerce)
2. the income of benefits of every kind derived from the ownership of wealth; interest paid on borrowed money (economics)
3. use; custom; habit (archaic)

Origin:
1350–1400; Middle English usaunce  from Old French usance,  probably from Medieval Latin usantia,  derivative of Latin usant (stem of usans), present participle of usare  "to use"

Related:
Related Words: use

Sentence Examples:
• The busy and sagacious bees fixed their republic in the clefts of the rocks and hollows of the trees, offering without usance the plenteous produce of their fragrant toil to every hand. - The History of Don Quixote, Miguel de Cervantes

• Come, then, you do know something, my lad. But it has been a tiresome business, with its investigation of titles and rights of usance, and court copyhold fines, and—Bother the business, it has taken up no end of time. But there, it’s all over, and you and I can go and make the dust fly and set the millstones spinning as much as we like. Thumpers they are, Tom, three feet in diameter. I wish to goodness they had been discs of glass instead of stone. - The Vast Abyss, George Manville Fenn

• So God me help, said Palomides, this is a shameful custom, and a villainous usance for a queen to use, and namely to make such war upon her own lord, that is called the Flower of Chivalry that is christian or heathen; and with all my heart I would destroy that shameful custom. - Le Morte D'Arthur, Thomas Malory

Sources: Dictionary.com

Word-E: A Word-A-Day