Usurp

Usurp (pronounced yoo-surp or you-zurp (US))

(1) Forcibly or illegally to seize and hold a throne, an office, institution or position. 

(2) To use without authority or right; wrongfully to employ.

(3) To encroach or infringe upon another’s rights.

(4) To make use of quotations (obsolete except for historic reference).

1275–1325: Middle English, borrowed from the Old French usurper from the Latin ūsūrpāre (to take possession through use), the Latin origin of which is undocumented but thought to be a construct of ūsus (use) + rapere (to seize).  There forms such as nonusurping, unusurped, unusurping, usurpingly and nonusurpingly exist but are so rare as to be practically extinct.  The seemingly strange but inventive strange verb selfusurp (or self-usurp) seems to have picked up the modern meaning that it applies to things happening between one and one’s digital avatar.  Usurp is a verb, usurper & usurpation are nouns, usurpative & usurpatory are adjectives,  usurpatively is an adverb, usurped is a verb and usurping is a noun & verb; the noun plural forms usurpers & usurpations are both in use in historic documents and are sometimes used of those involved in a modern coup d'état.

Manchester Corporation v Manchester Palace of Varieties Ltd [1955] 1 All ER 387

Lindsay Lohan usurping the escutcheon of the Secret Society of the Les Clefs d’Or (digitally altered image).

In London, in December 1954, the High Court of Chivalry was summoned for the first time in two centuries to hear the case of a city council claiming their coat of arms had been usurped by a private company displaying it on their theatre.  Before substantive matters were introduced, the judge had to rule whether the ancient court still existed and if so, if it was the appropriate body to hear the case.  The judge found the court extant and with valid jurisdiction, his reasons a succinct sketch of the UK’s unwritten constitution in operation and a tale of how law and language interacted over several centuries.  The important principle established was to confirm, even in the modern era, there existed an enforceable law of arms and the law takes as much notice of bad heraldic manners as it does of more violent discourtesies, the judge disapproving of the “prevalent” notion that something cannot be unethical if it’s lawful.  That theme has of late been noted by royal commissioners though perhaps not politicians; in the judgement, the temptation to comment on whether chivalry was dead was resisted.

The Manchester Corporation won and the court has not since sat but in 2012,  the council of the Welsh town of Aberystwyth issued a statement that they were prepared to lodge a writ against a Facebook page they alleged was usurping its coat of arms.  Before the council made clear whether they were intending to sue facebook.com or the author(s) of the page, the offending image had been removed.  As one of the findings in 1955 had been the High Court of Chivalry could be abolished only by an act of parliament, because New Labour’s judicial reforms didn’t do this, it appears the court would have to be convened in some form to hear similar matters although it's thought the marvellously flexible British constitution would allow a judge at an appropriate level to declare that their court was "sitting as the Court of Chivalry for the purposes of this case".