versatility

English

Etymology

From versatile +‎ -ity.

Pronunciation

• enPR: vûr′sə-tĭl′ĭ-tē
• (Received Pronunciation, General Australian) IPA^(key): /ˌvɜː.səˈtɪl.ɪ.tiː/

  Audio (Southern England):

  (file)

• (General American, Canada) IPA^(key): /ˌvɜɹ.səˈtɪl.ɪ.ti/
• (New Zealand) IPA^(key): /ˌvøː.səˈtəl.ə.tiː/
• (Scotland) IPA^(key): /ˌvɛɹ.səˈtɪl.ɪ.ti/
• (India) IPA^(key): /ˌvəːʳ.saˈʈɪl.ɪ.ʈiː/
• Rhymes: -ɪlɪti
• Hyphenation: ver‧sa‧til‧i‧ty

Noun

versatility (usually uncountable, plural versatilities)

2. The property of being versatile or having many different abilities.

   Synonyms: versatileness (less common); flexibility

   • 1749, Philip Dormer Stanhope, Earl of Chesterfield, Letters to His Son 1749

     Those are the sort of women who polish a young man the most, and who give him that habit of complaisance, and that flexibility and versatility of manners which prove of great use to him with men, and in the course of business.

   • 2025 January 3, Kai Burkhardt, “The best rain jackets of 2025, tried and tested”, in CNN‎^[1]:

     We broke up our tests into three categories — performance, durability and versatility — so we could compare the different features of each jacket against the others directly.

Related terms

• versatilely

Translations

the property of being versatile or having many different abilities

• Bulgarian: многостранност (bg) f (mnogostrannost)
• Catalan: versatilitat f
• Dutch: veelzijdigheid (nl) f
• Finnish: monipuolisuus (fi)
• French: polyvalence (fr) m
• Galician: versatilidade (gl) f
• Georgian: მრავალმხრივობა (mravalmxrivoba), მრავალფეროვნება (mravalperovneba), მრავალფუნქციონალურობა (mravalpunkcionaluroba)
• German: Vielseitigkeit f, Einsatzvielfalt f, vielseitige Anwendbarkeit f, Flexibilität (de) f, Gewandtheit (de) f
• Interlingua: versatilitate
• Irish: ilfheidhmeacht f (of tool, ingredient, etc.), ilúsáideacht f (of tool, ingredient, etc.), ilchumas m (of person), ildánacht f (of person)
• Italian: versatilità (it) f
• Macedonian: сестраност f (sestranost), многустраност f (mnogustranost)
• Polish: uniwersalność f, wszechstronność (pl) f
• Portuguese: versatilidade (pt) f
• Russian: многосторонность (ru) f (mnogostoronnostʹ), разносторонность (ru) f (raznostoronnostʹ)
• Spanish: versatilidad (es) f
• Swedish: mångsidighet (sv), ombytlighet (sv), flexibilitet (sv)

See also

• variability

Further reading

• “versatility”, in OneLook Dictionary Search.