useful
Americanadjective
-
being of use or service; serving some purpose; advantageous, helpful, or of good effect.
a useful member of society.
- Synonyms:
- beneficial, efficacious, profitable
- Antonyms:
- useless
-
of practical use, as for doing work; producing material results; supplying common needs.
the useful arts; useful work.
- Synonyms:
- beneficial, efficacious, profitable
- Antonyms:
- useless
adjective
-
able to be used advantageously, beneficially, or for several purposes; helpful or serviceable
-
informal commendable or capable
a useful term's work
noun
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Etymology
Origin of useful
Explanation
If you can use something, it's useful. Useful things are handy for whatever you're doing. If something is just what you need or you just find it helpful, then it's useful. A hammer is useful in building many things. Coasters are useful if you don't want a coffee table to get stains. College degrees are useful — or necessary — for many careers. MacGyver would tell you that just about anything can be useful at some point: it all depends what you need to do.
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
The central question, the company said, is how to make advanced AI abundant, safe and useful.
From MarketWatch • Jun. 8, 2026
Holding both thoughts at once is the most useful thing any executive, investor or policymaker can do right now.
From The Wall Street Journal • Jun. 7, 2026
Callum's advice for people hoping to land an internship is to not "underestimate how useful it is to do an internship just because it's temporary".
From BBC • Jun. 6, 2026
The GAO, tasked with reviewing the jobs data after McEntarfer’s termination, found that the BLS generally succeeds in providing accurate, useful, and timely information.
From Barron's • Jun. 5, 2026
But the fingerprint on the glass pane could still be useful.
From "The Mona Lisa Vanishes" by Nicholas Day
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
