a. [f. USURY sb. + -OUS. Cf. next.]
1. Characterized by, of the nature of or involving, usury or excessive interest.
1610. Holland, Camden’s Brit., 748. Vsurious contracts, voluptuous and vicious life.
1611. Fenton, Vsurie, 21. If it be a gaine couenanted meerely in respect of loane, it is condemned as vsurious.
1678. R. L’Estrange, Seneca’s Mor., II. xii. 154. We have found out wayes,… by Bloody Usurious Contracts, to undoe one another.
1729. Jacob, Law Dict., s.v. Usury, A Bond … shall not be avoided by a corrupt usurious Agreement between others.
1784. Cowper, Task, III. 798. An usurious loan To be refunded duely, when his vote … shall have earn’d its worthy price.
1840. Hood, Kilmansegg, Marriage, xxix. Fruits obtained before they were due At a discount most usurious.
1855. Milman, Lat. Chr., IX. vii. IV. 125. The Jews were especially to be compelled … to abandon all their usurious claims.
1869. Spurgeon, Treas. Dav., I. 209. To lend money even at the lowest interest to their fellow farmers [sc. Jews] in times of poverty would have been usurious.
b. Of interest, etc.: Charged by way of, acquired by virtue of, usury; exorbitant, excessive. Freq. with interest.
1611. Cotgr., Vsuraire, vsurious; taken, or giuen for interest or vse.
1729. Jacob, Law Dict., s.v. Usury. It is not material, whether the Payment of the Principal and the usurious Interest, be secured by the same, or by different Conveyances.
1776. Adam Smith, W. N., I. ix. The same usurious interest which is usually required from bankrupts.
1812. Crabbe, Tales, xiv. 160. If thus he grasp’d at such usurious gains.
1847. C. Brontë, J. Eyre, iv. A usurious rate of interest—fifty or sixty per cent.
1880. L. Oliphant, Gilead, x. 291. To lend money on mortgage … at a reasonable rate, instead of at the usurious percentage at present charged.
transf. 1634. Rainbow, Labour (1635), 41. Pile up thine house with obligatory parchment,… farme out th’ usurious time … and let each day redouble thine hundreds.
2. a. Practising usury; taking or charging excessive interest on loaned money; exacting in respect of interest. Also transf.
a. 1631. Donne, Love’s Usury, 2. For every houre that thou wilt spare mee now, I will allow, Usurious God of Love, twenty to thee.
1635. Quarles, Embl., III. xv. 183. Plead not; Vsurious Nature will have all, As well the Int’rest, as the Principall.
1836. J. Abbot, Way to do Good, iii. 96. The most hard-hearted usurious creditor.
1870. Macduff, Mem. Patmos, x. 136. The usurious vendors dealing out a stinted pennyworth to the famishing.
1870. H. Smart, Race for Wife, iv. Even a usurious solicitor is possessed of pride of some kind.
b. Characteristic of a usurer.
1727. Bailey (vol. II.), Usuriousness, usurious or extortioning Quality or Disposition.
1832. Rolls of Parlt., Index 958. The usurious Conduct of Peter de Appelby.
1862. J. Small, Eng. Metr. Hom., p. vii. The knight, whose usurious feelings suddenly returned, proposed to the beggar to leave the grain.
† 3. Liberal, abundant. Obs.–1
1780. Burke, Sp. at Bristol, Wks. III. 376. I shall … pay ample atonement and usurious amends to … humanity for my unhappy lapse.
Hence Usuriously adv.
Also usuriousness (see 2 b, quot. 1727). rare–0.
1670. Sir T. Culpepper, Necess. Abating Usury, 38. Finding … nothing sweet but summes usuriously improved.
1798. Coleridge, in Cottle, Early Recoll. (1837), I. 311. To make the present moment act fraudulently and usuriously towards the future time.
1808. Han. More, Cœlebs, xii. I. 152. She flatters egregiously and universally, on the principle of being paid back usuriously in the same coin.
