Utility.
Synonyms:
| advantage, | expediency, | serviceableness, |
| avail, | profit, | use, |
| benefit, | service, | usefulness. |
Utility (L. utilis, useful) signifies primarily the quality of being useful, but is somewhat more abstract and philosophical than usefulness or use, and is often employed to denote adaptation to produce a valuable result, while usefulness denotes the actual production of such result. We contrast beauty and utility. We say of an invention, its utility is questionable, or, on the other hand, its usefulness has been proved by ample trial, or I have found it of use; still, utility and usefulness are frequently interchanged. Expediency (L. ex, out, and pes, foot; literally, the getting the foot out) refers primarily to escape from or avoidance of some difficulty or trouble; either expediency or utility may be used to signify profit or advantage considered apart from right as the ground of moral obligation, or of actions that have a moral character, expediency denoting immediate advantage on a contracted view, and especially with reference to avoiding danger, difficulty, or loss, while utility may be so broadened as to cover all existence through all time, as in the utilitarian theory of morals. Policy is often used in a kindred sense, more positive than expediency but narrower than utility, as in the proverb, "Honesty is the best policy." Compare PROFIT.
Antonyms:
| disadvantage, | futility, | inadequacy, | inutility, | uselessness, |
| folly, | impolicy, | inexpediency, | unprofitableness, | worthlessness. |