- usual
- usual, customary, habitual, wonted, accustomed can mean familiar through frequent or regular repetition.Usual stresses the absence of strangeness and is applicable to whatever is normally expected or happens in the ordinary course of events{
they paid the usual fee
}{open for business as usual
}{it appeared to him to be the usual castle, and he saw nothing unusual in the manner of his reception by the usual old lord— Henry Adams
}{the characters were better drawn than is usual in romantic drama— Quinn
}{darkness caused them to speak much louder than usual— Dahl
}Customary often implies characteristic or distinguishing quality, and is applied to whatever is according to the usual or prevailing practices, conventions, or usages of a particular person or, especially, of a particular community{having her customary cup of tea before walking down the road to the bus stop— Salinger
}{we had no idea how men behave when their customary way of life is disrupted— Lippmann
}Sometimes invariable or fixed quality is implied{the assumption that whatever has been customary must be bad, and that anything which is or seems novel must be good— Grandgent
}Habitual implies settled or established practice, and is commonly applied to what has settled by long repetition into a habit{his habitual energy
}{a habitual smile
}{I stop ashamed, for I am talking habitual thoughts, and not adapting them to her ear— Yeats
}{shut away from all that was familiar and habitual to him— Hervey
}Wonted, a somewhat bookish word, stresses habituation, but tends to be applied to what is favored, sought, or purposefully cultivated{in revolutionary times when all our wonted certainties are violently called in question— Moberly
}{robbed him of his peace, destroying his pleasure in wonted things— Parrington
}Accustomed is often interchangeable with wonted and customary, but it is a more familiar word than the first and is weaker in its suggestions of custom and fixity than the second{work with accustomed diligence
}{even his evening clothes were as habitual as his breath and hung on him with a weary and accustomed grace as if he had been born in them— Wolfe
}Analogous words: *regular, natural, normal, typical: *common, ordinary, familiar: prevalent, *prevailing, rife, current
New Dictionary of Synonyms. 2014.