How to use usurp in a sentence
15 example sentences · verb
Usurp means to seize and hold or use (powers, an office, a coat of arms, a right or copyright, etc) from another, without right (usually by illegitimate means). Example: “The kingdom was usurped by the king's cousin.”
Examples of usurp by meaning
verbTo seize and hold or use (powers, an office, a coat of arms, a right or copyright, etc) from another, without right...
- Trump usurps the power of the national legislature, as laid out in Article 1 of the Constitution.2025 February 25, Linda Feldmann, “How Trump skirts checks and balances unlike any modern-day US president”, in The Christian Science...
verbTo take the place of someone or something else; to supplant.
- The recent authorities have usefully drawn attention to the need to ensure that any assessment of the merits of a case does not usurp careful attention to the criteria in section 10(9), to which we now turn.2016, Stephen Gilmore, Lisa Glennon, Hayes and Williams' Family Law, page 484
More sentences with usurp
- The kingdom was usurped by the king's cousin.From the entry usurped
- In our third example, the tyrant Nabis usurped power from the traditional, dual basileis of Sparta, then had them executed.2017, Michael Martin, City of the Sun: Development and Popular Resistance in the Pre-Modern West, New York, N.Y.: Algora Publishing…. From the entry basileus
- "One might postulate at this point that persons suffer from theophobia, contempt for one thought to usurp their prerogatives.2005, Morris A. Inch, Elder Brother: A Christian Alternative to Anti-Semitism, page 81. From the entry theophobia
- "Humans had set those machines to usurp our sense of beauty, our necessary selfdom out of which we make living judgments.1981, Frank Herbert, God Emperor of Dune (Science Fiction), →ISBN, →OCLC, page 263. From the entry selfdom
- Thus Aurobindo Ghose stated that the puritanical, pharisaical British conquered in the name of liberty and usurped under the cloak of altruism.2012, Piers Brendon, ‘Beginning the Dissent’, Literary Review, volume 401. From the entry pharisaical
- Furthermore, print did not usurp the role of manuscript; the magic latent in the words contained in print grimoires could be reactivated through transcription.2009, Owen Davies, “Introduction”, in Grimoires: A History of Magic Books, Oxford, Oxfordshire: Oxford University Press, →ISBN, page 5. From the entry grimoire
- This time, she was beaten by 16-year-old Tanja Szewczenko, who is threatening to usurp the two-time Olympic champion, Katarina Witt, as Germany's ice queen.1993 November 24, Jere Longman, “Olympics: 80 Days to Lillehammer”, in New York Times, retrieved 02 Jan 2014. From the entry ice queen
- This divine site of the nativity has been villainly usurped by the schismatic Greeks, and now the Catholic priest is forbidden to say Mass thereat.1960, Impresiones de un viajero: viaje por varios paises del Oriente, Europa, Tierra Santa y Norteamerica, 1958, Jaro, Iloilo City…. From the entry villainly
- The Sadjid ostikans were eager to foster mistrust amongst the nakharars, seeking to destabilize Bagratuni rule and to usurp the Bagratuni king's right to send taxes to the caliph.2007, Lynn Jones, Between Islam and Byzantium: Aght'amar and the Visual Construction of Medieval Armenian Rulership. From the entry ostikan
- One, which was destined later to usurp the field completely, consisted of a sleeved mail or scale hauberk, probably of eastern, Iranian, origin, descending to the knees.1929, Yale University, The Excavations at Dura-Europos: Conducted by Yale University and the French Academy of Inscriptions and Letters…. From the entry hauberk
- K'ang Hi not only refused to listen to this request, but he also commanded him to retire from his territories and also from Tsing-hai, which he had unlawfully usurped.1906, J. MacGowan, The Imperial History of China, 2nd edition, Shanghai: American Presbyterian Mission Press, →OCLC, page 534. From the entry Tsing-hai
- The disability needs to be “ablesplained” by a medical authority—and these explanations often usurp the voice or perspective of the narrator and overwrite their identity in scientific and pathological terms.2016, Jay Dolmage, Dale Jacobs, “Mutable Articulations: Disability Rhetorics and the Comics Medium”, in C. Foss, J. Gray, Zach Whalen…. From the entry ablesplain
- But the favourite's power and influence provoke intense ill-feeling among other courtiers, who regard him as a sinister, usurping parvenu with ideas above his station, or perhaps even a sorcerer.2001 January 31, Francis Wheen, “The whole truth about Peter's friends”, in The Guardian. From the entry parvenu
Meaning of usurp
- verb To seize and hold or use (powers, an office, a coat of arms, a right or copyright, etc) from another, without right (usually by illegitimate means).
- verb To take the place of someone or something else; to supplant.
- verb To make use of.
Questions about usurp in a sentence
- How do you use usurp in a sentence?
- Usurp is used as a verb. For example: “The kingdom was usurped by the king's cousin.”
- What is a short sentence with usurp?
- “The kingdom was usurped by the king's cousin.”
- What does usurp mean?
- Usurp means to seize and hold or use (powers, an office, a coat of arms, a right or copyright, etc) from another, without right (usually by illegitimate means).
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: usurp (page history and authors) and the entries each sentence comes from. Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws chose the sentences, left out offensive ones and quotations older than 1900, and marked the word in each. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
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Cite this page: “How to use usurp in a sentence.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/sentences/usurp. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.
