Usuriousness

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. The nature of excessively charging borrowers high interest rates constitutes financial exploitation
2. The practice of demanding unusually high rates on loans that exceeds reasonable norms
3. The condition of imposing interest charges on borrowed money that are considered exploitatively steep

Etymology: "Usuriousness" is a plain English formation: the adjective "usurious" with the suffix "-ness" added to turn a quality into a noun. The adjective itself comes from "usury," which in older English meant the lending of money at interest and was not necessarily a criticism. The suffix "-ness," from Old English, has been attached to native and borrowed adjectives for centuries, so the noun simply names the state of being usurious. The interesting part lies in the base word. "Usury" once covered any charge for the use of money, and only later came to mean interest that is excessive. "Usurious" therefore carries that moral judgment inside it, and "usuriousness" names the quality of charging such rates.

Synonyms: exorbitance, usury