public utility

American  

noun

1. a business enterprise, as a public-service corporation, performing an essential public service and regulated by the federal, state, or local government.

2. Usually public utilities. stocks or bonds of public-utility companies, excluding railroads.

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public utility British  

noun

1. Also called (US): public-service corporation.  an enterprise concerned with the provision to the public of essentials, such as electricity or water

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public utility Cultural  

1. A private company supplying water, gas, electricity, telephone service, or the like, which is granted a monopoly by the government and then regulated by the government.

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Other Word Forms

• public-utility
  adjective

Etymology

Origin of public utility

First recorded in 1900–05

Example Sentences

He noted that when he first moved to L.A. nearly 20 years ago, the charge to get the nation’s largest public utility off of coal was seen as audacious and even laughable.

From Los Angeles Times • Dec. 4, 2025

In South Carolina, public utility Santee Cooper is in talks to sell its partially built AP1000s to Brookfield, which could complete them to power AI data centers.

From The Wall Street Journal • Nov. 24, 2025

American Water Works and Essential Utilities reached an agreement to merge in an all-stock deal that will result in a combined water-and-wastewater public utility valued at roughly $40 billion.

From Barron's • Oct. 27, 2025

Ohio’s attorney general charged two former executives of FirstEnergy and a onetime public utility commissioner in a multimillion-dollar bribery scandal.

From New York Times • Feb. 13, 2024

Such are the railroad commissions, commissions of insurance, public utility commissions, commissions of inland fisheries, and the like.

From Government in the United States National, State and Local by Garner, James Wilford