utile
Americanadjective
adjective
Etymology
Origin of utile
1475–85; < Old French < Latin ūtilis, equivalent to ūt ( ī ) to use + -ilis -ile
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.
But the words pleasant and useful suggest a possible way forward: They invoke the Roman poet Horace’s two-pronged injunction for art—that it be both dulce et utile.
From Slate • Mar. 20, 2017
His ambivalence seems to surface in the range of diction: the arty "utile," the cliché "arm and a leg," the vulgar rhetorical question.
From Salon • Apr. 18, 2011
He had always cherished the fact that his wife made objects not only attractive but utile, which should have made them more valuable, not less.
From Salon • Apr. 18, 2011
The latest examples of the utile are handsomely represented.
From Time Magazine Archive
“Quid sit pulchrum, quid turpe, quid utile, quid non, Plenius et melius Chrysippo et Crantore dicit.”
From Hazlitt on English Literature An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature by Zeitlin, Jacob
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.
