Meaning & use

usurer

noun·Advanced

A person who lends money at unfairly or illegally high rates of interest.

See it in a sentence

The desperate farmer borrowed from a local usurer at a punishing rate of interest.

Medieval literature often portrayed the usurer as a greedy and unsympathetic figure.

A note on using this word

Usurer carries a strongly negative, moralizing tone, unlike the neutral term lender.

Words with a similar meaning

moneylenderloan shark

Choose a synonym to suit the sentence. Meanings can overlap without being identical.

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