UTILITIES

Noun

utilities

plural of utility

Source: Wiktionary


UTILITY

U*til"i*ty, n. Etym: [OE. utilite, F. utilité, L. utilitas, fr. utilis useful. See Utile.]

1. The quality or state of being useful; usefulness; production of good; profitableness to some valuable end; as, the utility of manure upon land; the utility of the sciences; the utility of medicines. The utility of the enterprises was, however, so great and obvious that all opposition proved useless. Macaulay.

2. (Polit. Econ.)

Definition: Adaptation to satisfy the desires or wants; intrinsic value. See Note under Value, 2. Value in use is utility, and nothing else, and in political economy should be called by that name and no other. F. A. Walker.

3. Happiness; the greatest good, or happiness, of the greatest number, -- the foundation of utilitarianism. J. S. Mill.

Syn.

– Usefulness; advantageous; benefit; profit; avail; service.

– Utility, Usefulness. Usefulness has an Anglo-Saxon prefix, utility is Latin; and hence the former is used chiefly of things in the concrete, while the latter is employed more in a general and abstract sense. Thus, we speak of the utility of an invention, and the usefulness of the thing invented; of the utility of an institution, and the usefulness of an individual. So beauty and utility (not usefulness) are brought into comparison. Still, the words are often used interchangeably.

Source: Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary 1913 Edition



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Word of the Day

18 May 2025

OBLIQUE

(adjective) slanting or inclined in direction or course or position--neither parallel nor perpendicular nor right-angled; “the oblique rays of the winter sun”; “acute and obtuse angles are oblique angles”; “the axis of an oblique cone is not perpendicular to its base”


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Coffee Trivia

Coffee starts as a yellow berry, changes into a red berry, and then is picked by hand to harvest. The red berry is de-shelled through a water soaking process and what’s left inside is the green coffee bean. This bean then dries in the sun for 3-5 days, where it is then packed and ready for sale.

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