utility

I

(New American Roget's College Thesaurus)

State of being useful

Nouns — utility; usefulness, efficacy, efficiency, adequacy; service, stead, avail, benefit; help, aid; convenience, availability; applicability, function, value; worth, goodness; productiveness; utilization (see use). See expedience.

Verbs — avail, serve; subserve; conduce, tend; answer or serve a purpose; bear fruit, produce (see production); profit, remunerate, benefit, do good; perform or discharge a function; do or render a service; bestead, stand one in good stead; be the making of; help, aid. Informal, come in handy.

Adjectives — useful, of use; serviceable, good for; instrumental, conducive, tending; convenient; subsidiary, helping, advantageous, beneficial, profitable, gainful, remunerative, worth one's salt; valuable, invaluable; prolific, productive; practical, practicable; at one's service; pragmatic, functional; adequate; efficient, efficacious; effective, effectual; expedient, applicable, available, ready, handy, at hand, tangible; commodious, adaptable, disposable.

Adverbs — usefully, efficiently, etc.; pro bono publico. Informal, on tap.

Quotations — Laws are always useful to persons of property and hurtful to those who have none (Jean Jacques Rousseau), A life spent in making mistakes is not only more honorable but more useful than a life spent doing nothing (G. B. Shaw).

Antonyms, see uselessness.

II

(Roget's IV) n.

1. [Usefulness]

Syn. use, service, advantage, convenience, benefit, serviceableness, expediency, avail, profit, favor, efficacy, efficiency, adequacy, productiveness.

2. [Utility company]

Syn. gas company, electricity company, water company; see business 4 , monopoly .

III

(Roget's 3 Superthesaurus) n.

usefulness, practicality, service, function, benefit, adaptability.

IV

(Roget's Thesaurus II) noun The quality of being suitable or adaptable to an end: account, advantage, avail, benefit, profit, use, usefulness. See USED.