usage

habit, practice, usage, custom, wont mean a way of acting fixed through repetition. habit implies a doing unconsciously and often compulsively.

• • had a habit of tapping his fingers

practice suggests an act or method followed with regularity and usually through choice.

• • our practice is to honor all major credit cards

usage suggests a customary action so generally followed that it has become a social norm.

• • western-style dress is now common usage in international business

custom applies to a practice or usage so steadily associated with an individual or group as to have almost the force of unwritten law.

• • the custom of wearing black at funerals

wont usually applies to a habitual manner, method, or practice of an individual or group.

• • as was her wont, she slept until noon