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Webster 1828 Edition


Used

U'SED

,
pp.
s as z. Employed; occupied; treated.

Definition 2024


used

used

English

Verb

used

  1. simple past tense and past participle of use
    • 1948, Carey McWilliams, North from Mexico / The Spanish-Speaking People of The United States, J. B. Lippincott Company, page 75
      In 1866 Colonel J. F. Meline noted that the rebozo had almost disappeared in Santa Fe and that hoop skirts, on sale in the stores, were being widely used.
    You used me!
  2. (intransitive, as an auxiliary verb, now only in past tense) to perform habitually; to be accustomed [to doing something]
    He used to live here, but moved away last year.

Adjective

used (comparative more used, superlative most used)

  1. That is or has or have been used.
    • 2013 August 3, Boundary problems”, in The Economist, volume 408, number 8847:
      Economics is a messy discipline: too fluid to be a science, too rigorous to be an art. Perhaps it is fitting that economists’ most-used metric, gross domestic product (GDP), is a tangle too. GDP measures the total value of output in an economic territory. Its apparent simplicity explains why it is scrutinised down to tenths of a percentage point every month.
    The ground was littered with used syringes left behind by drug abusers.
  2. That has or have previously been owned by someone else.
    He bought a used car.
  3. Familiar through use; usual; accustomed.
    I got used to this weather.

Synonyms

Antonyms

  • (having been used): unused
  • (previously owned by someone else): new

Derived terms

Translations

See also

Statistics

Most common English words before 1923: felt · since · use · #251: used · began · thy · less

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