usurp

verb

Etymology: From Middle English usurpen, from Old French usurper, from Latin ūsūrpō.

1. 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).

   “[S]o he dies, But soon revives, Death over him no power Shall long usurp […]”

   “[…] usurped or took any name or title of honor or dignity. In many cases it happened that persons who had usurped arms without authority, entered their names […]”

2. To take the place the place of someone or something else; to supplant.

   “But if now / You ſhould (as cruell fathers do) proclame / Your right, and Tyrant like uſurp the glory / Of my peculiar honours, not deriv'd / From ſucceſſary, but purchas'd with my bloud, / Then I muſt ſtand firſt Champion for my ſelfe, / Againſt all interpoſers.”

   “Jones answered all his questions with much civility, though he never remembered to have seen the petty-fogger before; and though he concluded, from the outward appearance and behaviour of the man, that he usurped a freedom with his betters, to which he was by no means intitled.”

3. To make use of.

   “"[…] especially considering that even Matter it self, in which they tumble and wallow, which they feel with their hands and usurp with all their Senses […]"”