usurp
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\n \n Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for October 27, 2024 is:\n \n
\n \n\n usurp • \\yoo-SERP\\ • verb
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To usurp something (such as power) is to take and keep it by force and without the right to do so. Usurp can also mean "to take the place of by or as if by force."
\n\n// Some people have accused city council members of trying to usurp the mayor\u2019s power.
\n\n// We cannot allow lies to usurp the truth.
\n\n\n \n \n\n Examples:
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\u201c[Kazimierz] Pu\u0142aski, like other Poles in the 1770s, hoped for the American republic to live because he was watching the Polish republic perish. Pu\u0142aski was a veteran of wars with Russia. Catherine the Great, a German princess, had usurped the Russian imperial throne after the murder of her husband in a coup d\u2019\xe9tat in 1762.\u201d \u2014 Timothy Snyder, The Atlantic, 15 Sept. 2024
\n \n \n\n Did you know?
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While often associated with questionable behavior by the royals of eras past, usurp retains its usefulness today. It\u2019s still typically applied when someone takes power without authority or the right to do so, though the power taken is not necessarily political and the question of right and authority may be subject to debate; a city council usurping a mayor\u2019s power is a more traditional use of the word, but one product can be said to be usurping market share from another, and one athlete may claim to have usurped GOAT status. The usurpation can even be sartorial: Amanda Mull, writing for The Atlantic, noted how tracksuits in the 1980s \u201cusurped much of cotton sweatpants\u2019 momentum toward legitimate coolness.\u201d Usurp comes from Latin: usurpare, meaning \u201cto take possession of without a legal claim,\u201d was formed by combining usu (a form of usus, meaning \u201cuse,\u201d which also led to the words usually and use) and rapere (\u201cto seize\u201d).
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