usurious

adj

1. Of or pertaining to usury.

   “If an Executor pay an Uſurious Bond, other Creditors may make a Devaſtavit of it, Hob. p. 167. If a Man be bound in an Obligation Uſurious, the Bond is void between the Parties, yea and Strangers ſhall take the advantage of it; and therefore if ſuch an Obligor makes his Executor and die, and the Executor pay the uſurious Bond, other Creditors may ſhew it, and make a Devaſtavit of it, in Winchcomb and the Biſhop of Wincheſter’s Caſe.”

   “The fallacy of his [Justice William Best’s] argument is, that he supposes the objection to the plaintiff’s recovery to be, that his contract with the defendant is usurious; whereas the objection really arises from the circumstance that these notes are deposited to enforce another contract, which was usurious, and the defence rests on this — not that more than 5 per cent. is reserved by these bills, but that they are destined to enforce a contract which is usurious.”

   “Behold the name given by Christ to both the usurer and his usurious borrower. Sinners lend to sinners; each is a sinner, the usurer and the borrower.”

   “His one worldly care was to raise ready money; sufficient for the day is the evil thereof. And how he raised it: From usurious insatiable Jews; every fresh Jew sticking on him like a fresh horseleech, sucking his and our life out; crying continually, Give! give!”

   “The originator of a usurious loan in California is subject to severe civil penalties.”

2. Exorbitant.

   “But nature, violated by these excesses, exacts a most usurious interest for this illicit indulgence. She makes them pay for moments of rapture with hours of despair.”