utility

English

Wikipedia

Etymology

From Old French utilité (“usefulness”) (Modern French utilité), ultimately from Latin uti (“to use, enjoy”).

Pronunciation

• IPA: /juˈtɪl.ɪ.ti/

Noun

utility (plural utilities)

1. The state or condition of being useful; usefulness.
2. Something that is useful.
3. (economics) The ability of a commodity to satisfy needs or wants; the satisfaction experienced by the consumer of that commodity.
4. (business, finance) A service provider, such as an electric company or water company or its securities.
5. (computing) A software program specifically designed to help manage and tune the computer hardware, operating system or application software, and perform a single task or a small range of tasks; as opposed to application software which tends to be software suites.

   I've bought a new disk utility that can recover deleted files.

6. (sports) The ability to play multiple positions.

Synonyms

• (state of being useful): usefulness, note
• See also Wikisaurus:utility

Translations

state or condition of being useful

Czech: užitečnost (cs) f. Dutch: bruikbaarheid (nl) f., handigheid (nl) f. Esperanto: utileco (eo) Estonian: kasulikkus (et) Finnish: hyödyllisyys (fi) French: utilité (fr) f. Galician: utilidade (gl) f. German: nützlich (de)

Italian: utilità (it) f. Japanese: 有用性 (ja) (ゆうようせい, yūyōsei) Romanian: utilitate (ro), folos (ro) Scottish Gaelic: math (gd) m. Slovak: úžitok (sk) m. Spanish: utilidad (es) f. Swedish: användbarhet (sv) c.

something that is useful

Dutch: hulpmiddel (nl) n., handigs (nl) Finnish: hyödyke, hyötytavara, hyötyesine; työkalu, apuväline French: utilitaire (fr) m. Italian: attrezzo (it) m., strumento (it) m.

Japanese: 実用品 (ja) (じつようひん, jitsuyōhin) Scottish Gaelic: math (gd) m. Spanish: conveniencia (es) f. Swedish: användbar (sv) (adjective)

economics: ability of a commodity to satisfy needs or wants

Czech: užitek (cs) m. Dutch: bruikbaarheid (nl) f.

Swedish: användbarhet (sv) c., lönsamhet (sv) c.

business: service provider

Dutch: voorziening (nl) f. Finnish: hyödyke (fi), palvelu (fi) Italian: fornitore (it) m., servizio (it) m.

Swedish: leverantör (sv) c., tjänsteleverantör (sv) c., specific public utilities: vattenverk (sv) n., kraftverk (sv) n., värmeverk (sv) n. and other compounds with verk (sv) n.

computing: software program with specific task

Dutch: hulpmiddel (nl) n., hulpprogramma (nl) n. Japanese: ユーティリティ (ja) (yūtiriti)

Polish: program użytkowy (pl) m. Swedish: tillämpning (sv) c., applikation (sv) c., verktyg (sv) n.