How to Use usury in a Sentence

usury

noun
  • Most states have usury laws, which cap the rate of interest that can be charged.
    — Steven Davidoff Solomon, New York Times, 17 May 2016
  • The tribal connection, which critics say is designed to try to skirt state usury laws, isn't new.
    — Susan Tompor, Detroit Free Press, 31 Oct. 2019
  • The cameras made the evils of usury, stealing and smuggling visible.
    — Richard Vokes, Quartz Africa, 30 June 2019
  • When the plague struck Barcelona, both explanations were used, about usury and the killing of Christ.
    — Isaac Chotiner, The New Yorker, 3 Jan. 2020
  • Such banks were to be governed by the usury laws, or lack thereof, of their states of incorporation.
    — George Liebmann, Baltimore Sun, 11 Apr. 2026
  • Your problem with the credit-card companies is usury rates, from your position.
    — Julie Bykowicz, WSJ, 13 Oct. 2020
  • States with usury caps still have functioning financial systems.
    — Carter Dougherty, Mercury News, 7 Feb. 2026
  • And these things further engage in usury and malicious practices that can further hurt your credit score.
    — Quartz Staff, Quartz, 28 Mar. 2023
  • But with the help of her brother’s historical research, her reporting may put a stop to some of the worst usury on the Strip.
    — John Domini, Los Angeles Times, 2 Apr. 2021
  • In states where usury laws cap interest rates, the company lowers its highest rate - 36 percent - to comply.
    — Peter Whoriskey, courant.com, 2 July 2018
  • Additionally, usury caps on auto loans need to be strictly enforced, and the backdoor loopholes to debtors’ prisons should be closed.
    — Jack McCordick, The New Republic, 13 Sep. 2023
  • Nine years later, he was convicted of criminal usury and enterprise corruption, then sentenced to three years in prison.
    — Daniel Arkin, NBC news, 25 Oct. 2025
  • Democrats say the rule is actually meant to let those firms evade state usury laws and rate caps by partnering with banks that are subject to looser federal lending rules.
    — Sabrina Eaton, cleveland, 29 Mar. 2021
  • Some Georgia lawmakers have been trying and failing for more than two decades to put title lenders under state banking regulation and usury laws.
    — Margaret Coker, ProPublica, 13 July 2023
  • Jews were labeled materialistic and corrupt centuries before the Catholic Church began to worry about usury, or even about the sin of avarice.
    — Sara Lipton, The New York Review of Books, 17 June 2019
  • The book explained how to calculate interest rates, circumvent the Church’s usury laws, apportion profits, and assess revenues and costs.
    — Big Think, 5 Nov. 2025
  • The industry argues that the advances are technically not loans — the money is paid back only if the plaintiff wins a settlement or a jury award — and are therefore exempt from state usury laws.
    — Matthew Goldstein and Jessica Silver-Greenberg, New York Times, 19 Mar. 2018
  • But usury, officially forbidden by the medieval Church, was still practiced, particularly by monks.
    — Eula Biss, The New Yorker, 30 Aug. 2020
  • In recent years, 17 states have brought back strong usury limits, capping interest rates and effectively prohibiting payday lending.
    — Matthew Desmond, New York Times, 9 Mar. 2023
  • The four companies are affiliated with the Habematolel Pomo tribe, which has argued that it is not governed by state laws and should not have to comply with state usury rules.
    — Stacy Cowley, New York Times, 18 Jan. 2018
  • Blame the Supreme Court, which in 1978 undermined state usury laws by ruling that banks could charge customers the usury rate of their home state rather than the rate in the customer’s state.
    — Business Columnist, Los Angeles Times, 14 Jan. 2026
  • The bill passed by Congress would allow state attorneys general to investigate whether the affiliations of lenders with banks is for the purpose of evading state usury laws.
    — BostonGlobe.com, 25 June 2021
  • If the loan is made in the name of the bank, but the nonbank lender provides the capital, assumes the risks, and takes over ownership of the loan after it is consummated, courts have allowed enforcement of state usury laws.
    — BostonGlobe.com, 23 May 2021
  • America’s top marginal tax rate stayed at ninety-one per cent until 1964, and anti-usury laws kept a ceiling on interest rates until the late seventies.
    — Caleb Crain, The New Yorker, 7 May 2018
  • Charging excess interest is the sin of usury, and outstanding obligations are supposed to be periodically canceled during jubilee years.
    — Martin Sandbu, Foreign Affairs, 12 Dec. 2017
  • One, as previously noted, is the conflict between the religious prohibition of usury and its economic necessity.
    — Dan Hofstadter, WSJ, 25 June 2021
  • The solution would be enactment of a nationwide usury limit, but that falls entirely within congressional authority.
    — Business Columnist, Los Angeles Times, 14 Jan. 2026
  • Until 1979, all states had usury laws limiting permissible interest rates on transactions within their domain.
    — George Liebmann, Baltimore Sun, 11 Apr. 2026
  • Payday lending companies at times incorporate their businesses on tribal lands because tribes are generally immune from state regulations and lawsuits, and there’s no federal law on usury on the books.
    — Steve Vockrodt, kansascity.com, 27 Apr. 2017
  • EasyPay gets around the Massachusetts usury law by being affiliated with a bank headquartered outside the state, which cuts off the state’s authority to regulate it.
    — BostonGlobe.com, 25 June 2021

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'usury.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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