general-purpose

American  

[jen-er-uhl-pur-puhs] / ˈdʒɛn ər əlˈpɜr pəs /

adjective

1. useful in many ways; not limited in use or function.

   a good general-purpose dictionary.

---

general-purpose British  

adjective

1. having a range of uses or applications; not restricted to one function

---

Etymology

Origin of general-purpose

First recorded in 1890–95

Example Sentences

Others are moving to smaller, more specialized models built for specific industries like real estate or finance, rather than giant general-purpose ones.

From Barron's • May 31, 2026

Using CUDA, developers can customize GPUs for general-purpose tasks.

From MarketWatch • May 23, 2026

Eighty years after the creation of ENIAC, the world's first general-purpose electronic computer, researchers at the University of Pennsylvania are exploring a new way to power the future of computing.

From Science Daily • May 19, 2026

But advances in batteries, motors and artificial intelligence have spawned a new generation: general-purpose robots that can walk around a plant and perform multiple jobs.

From The Wall Street Journal • Mar. 15, 2026

This general-purpose lamp, as a matter of fact, was mostly made use of by Higgs.

From Queen Sheba's Ring by Haggard, Henry Rider