usurp

v. i. To commit forcible seizure of place, power, functions, or the like, without right; to commit unjust encroachments; to be, or act as, a usurper. [ 1913 Webster ]

The parish churches on which the Presbyterians and fanatics had usurped. Evelyn. [ 1913 Webster ]

And now the Spirits of the Mind
Are busy with poor Peter Bell;
Upon the rights of visual sense
Usurping, with a prevalence
More terrible than magic spell. Wordsworth. [ 1913 Webster ]

a. [ L. usurpans, p. pr. ] Usurping; encroaching. [ Obs. ] Gauden. [ 1913 Webster ]

n. [ L. usurpatio &unr_; making use, usurpation: cf. F. usurpation. ] [ 1913 Webster ]

1. 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; as, the usurpation of a throne; the usurpation of the supreme power. [ 1913 Webster ]

[ 1913 Webster ]

He contrived their destruction, with the usurpation of the regal dignity upon him. Sir T. More. [ 1913 Webster ]

A law [ of a State ] which is a usurpation upon the general government. O. Ellsworth. [ 1913 Webster ]

Manifest usurpation on the rights of other States. D. Webster. [ 1913 Webster ]

☞ Usurpation, in a peculiar sense, formerly denoted the absolute ouster and dispossession of the patron of a church, by a stranger presenting a clerk to a vacant benefice, who us thereupon admitted and instituted. [ 1913 Webster ]

2. Use; usage; custom. [ Obs. ] Bp. Pearson. [ 1913 Webster ]

a. [ L. usurpatorius. ] Marked by usurpation; usurping. [ R. ] [ 1913 Webster ]

n. Usurpation. [ R. ] “Beneath man's usurpature.” R. Browning. [ 1913 Webster ]

n. One who usurps; especially, one who seizes illegally on sovereign power; as, the usurper of a throne, of power, or of the rights of a patron. [ 1913 Webster ]

A crown will not want pretenders to claim it, not usurpers, if their power serves them, to possess it. South. [ 1913 Webster ]