from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
- n. The act of usurping, especially the wrongful seizure of royal sovereignty.
- n. A wrongful seizure or exercise of authority or privilege belonging to another; an encroachment: "in our own day, gross usurpations upon the liberty of private life” ( John Stuart Mill).
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
- n. The wrongful seizure of something by force, especially of sovereignty or other authority.
- n. Trespass onto another's property without permission.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English
- n. The act of usurping, or of seizing and enjoying; an authorized, arbitrary assumption and exercise of power, especially an infringing on the rights of others; specifically, the illegal seizure of sovereign power; -- commonly used with of, also used with on or upon.
- n. Use; usage; custom.
from The Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. The act of usurping; the act of seizing or occupying and enjoying the place, power, functions, or property of another without right; especially, the wrongful occupation of a throne: as, the usurpation of supreme power.
- n. In law: Intrusion into an office or assumption of a franchise, whether on account of vacancy or by ousting the incumbent, without any color of title.
- n. Such intrusion or assumption without lawful title.
- n. The absolute ouster and dispossession of the patron of a church by presenting a clerk to a vacant benefice, who is thereupon admitted and instituted; intrusion. Use; usage.
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- n. wrongfully seizing and holding (an office or powers) by force (especially the seizure of a throne or supreme authority)
- n. entry to another's property without right or permission
Sorry, no etymologies found.
Chartists at once organized resistance to what they called the usurpation and, after a long civil war, were successful.
King William, independent of Leisler, and on the 26th of October, before the arrival of the packet from Lord Nottingham, they formed themselves into a convention to resist what they called the usurpation of Leisler.
However, Huntington did not take into account the possibility that the debate could yet be framed in terms of potential usurpation from the political class using immigration as a tool.
I would argue that judicial usurpation is no commitment atall.
I would argue that judicial usurpation is no commitment at all.
In those times of ignorance, infidelity, and idolatry, the devil, by the divine permission, thus led men captive at his will; and he could not have gained such adoration from them as he had, if he had not pretended to give oracles to them, for by both his usurpation is maintained as the god of this world.
Maybe y’all at the NY Times could cover the McCain usurpation of executive authority from a sitting U.S. President. —
After the Revolution, during the First Empire, so called, -- the usurpation, that is, of Napoleon Bonaparte, -- literature was well-nigh extinguished in France.
President of the United States had not acted sincerely in this matter; that his usurpation was a clear one, and that he was to be censured for that usurpation.
Dunkeld; for this fact illustrates one of the great evils under which the Scottish Church was at this time labouring, namely the usurpation of abbeys and benefices by great secular chieftains, an abuse existing side by side, and closely connected with, the scandal of concubinage among the clergy, with its inevitable consequence, the hereditary succession to benefices, and wholesale secularization of the property of the Church.