utilityn.

c1400 ( G. Chaucer Treat. Astrolabe (Cambr. Dd.3.53) (1872) ii. §26. 36 The vtilite to knowe the Assenciouns in the rihte cercle.

a1425 tr. Arderne's Treat. Fistula 55 Maners of curacions..to be noted vnder compendiousnez to þe vtilite of helyng.

c1440 Gesta Romanorum (Add. MS.) xciv. 424 I clad my seruaunte, that is, my manhode, nought but to vtterly vtilite and necessite.

1528 R. Thorne in Hakl. Voy. (1589) 251 The commoditie and vtilitie of this Nauigation.

?1566 J. Alday tr. P. Boaistuau Theatrum Mundi sig. S ij The wonderfull Invention, Utilitie and Dignitie of Printing.

1603 P. Holland tr. Plutarch Morals 19 Where..the attractive pleasure and sweetenesse of speech, is not without some fruit nor void of utilitie.

1651 T. Hobbes Leviathan iv. xliv. 349 The utility of Prayer for the Dead.

1760 S. Johnson Idler 26 Jan. 25 He discussed the Utility..of the Islington Turnpike.

1762 H. Walpole Vertue's Anecd. Painting II. iii. 146 The circular court is a picturesque thought, but without meaning or utility.

1801 H. Lee Canterbury Tales IV. 418 A cottage..more calculated for utility than ornament.

1841 M. Elphinstone Hist. India II. vi. iii. 71 The extent and utility of his public works.

1871 J. B. Mozley Univ. Serm. (1876) vi. 124 The older poetical view brought in more the utility and active force of nature.

1878 W. S. Jevons Polit. Econ. 15 Everything which forms a part of wealth must be useful, or have utility.

c1440 Pallad. on Husb. iii. 524 Rootys smale of noon vtilite Cutte of.

?1518 A. Barclay Fyfte Eglog sig. Aiij^v Fayre warkes, of grete vtylyte.

1598 R. Barret Theorike & Pract. Mod. Warres v. 139 Which thinke you to be of most vtilitie in the warres?

1759 W. Robertson Hist. Scotl. ii. ⁋32 This victory..was of no real utility.

1778 G. L. Way Learning at Loss II. 11 Five thousand other Instruments of Equestrian Utility.

1801 H. Lee Canterbury Tales IV. 424 Those in whose hands..[life] is an engine of either private or public utility.

1831 D. E. Williams Life Sir T. Lawrence II. 42 The habit..is of the greatest utility.

1857 J. Ruskin Polit. Econ. Art i. 11 The two great objects of utility and splendour.

1751 D. Hume Enq. Princ. Morals v. 73 In common Life..the Circumstance of Utility is always appeal'd to.

1780 J. Bentham Introd. Princ. Morals & Legisl. (1789) i. p. iii An action then may be said to be conformable to the principle of utility..when the tendency it has to augment the happiness of the community is greater than any it has to diminish it.

1785 W. Paley Princ. Moral & Polit. Philos. i. vi Or must we give up our princple, that the criterion of right is utility?

1830 J. Mackintosh Diss. Progress Ethical Philos. 134 A theory founded on utility..requires that we should cultivate..those other habitual dispositions which we know..to be generally the source of actions beneficial to ourselves and our fellows.

1861 J. S. Mill Utilitarianism (1863) ii. 9 The creed which accepts as the foundation of morals, Utility, or the Greatest Happiness Principle.

1883 H. Sidgwick Pol. Econ. i. iii. 77 There is another difficulty lurking in the conception of Utility as a measure of wealth.

1881 F. Y. Edgeworth Math. Psychics p. vi It is argued from mathematical considerations that the basis of arbitration between contractors is the greatest possible utility of all concerned.

1934 Economica Feb. 53 Suppose..that we have a utility function given; that is to say, we know, for the individual in question, how much utility he would derive from any given set of quantities of the goods on the market.

1944 J. Von Neumann & O. Morgenstern Theory of Games i. 16 We feel..that one part of our assumptions at least—that of treating utilities as numerically measurable quantities—is not quite as radical as is often assumed in the literature.

1948 Jrnl. Polit. Econ. 56 280/1 Choices among riskless alternatives are explained in terms of maximization of utility: individuals are supposed to choose as they would if they attributed some common quantitative characteristic—designated utility—to various goods and then selected the combination of goods that yielded the largest total amount of this common characteristic.

1960 A. Rapoport Fights, Games, & Debates iv. 64 The more he worked, the more he would get and so the more utility would accrue to him on that account. The more he worked, however, the more tired he would get and the more negative utility would accrue to him on that account.

1965 Papers Regional Sci. Assoc. XV. 162 The individual will tend to locate himself at a place whose characteristics possess or promise a relatively higher level of utility than in other places which are conspicuous to him.

1968 G. Owen Game Theory vi. 133 This cannot be determined simply by measuring the increase and decrease of utility which this action causes to the two individuals, for..the units of utility scales are arbitrary and thus cannot be used for interpersonal comparisons.

1973 Proc. Royal Soc. B. 184 421 In such a calculus [of medicine] it is necessary to assume that it is possible to attach a measure of worth or value to any state of health, and for this measure we use the word utility.

1980 A. J. Jones Game Theory iv. 178 If you assign a utility of −50 to the loss of $10, then it will not pay you to engage in this gamble if your utility for a gain of $20 is less than 75.

1980 A. J. Jones Game Theory iv. 180 One alternative possesses a larger utility than another because it is preferred, not the other way round.

?1483 W. Caxton tr. Caton i. sig. aviii^v By the comyn wele of a londe is saued al synguler prouffytes and vtylytees.

1489 W. Caxton tr. C. de Pisan Bk. Fayttes of Armes i. vi. 14 For the regarde of somme particuler vtilite.

c1503 R. Arnold Chron. f. ij/2 That money..to be chosen..for necessites and vtylites of the same cite.

?1541 R. Copland Guy de Chauliac's Questyonary Cyrurgyens ii. sig. Biij^v The scyence of the Nathomy is..nedefull to the Cyrurgyen for .iiij. vtylyties.

1592 A. Day Eng. Secretorie (rev. ed.) i. sig. X4^v Iudge by your owne decernment..how greatly you are led awrye, in thus carelesly roaming vpon others vilities.

1604 E. Grimeston tr. J. de Acosta Nat. & Morall Hist. Indies vii. i. 496 If therefore there were no other fruite in the Historie..of the Indians, but this common vtilitie.

1659 J. Pearson Expos. Apostles Creed i. 34 Which no man who considereth the uses and utilities of every species can deny.

1688 R. Boyle Disquis. Final Causes iii. 82 Of several of his creatures, whereof men..make some uses, they shall hereafter discover other utilities.

1775 J. Harris Philos. Arrangem. ix. 196 The Knowlege of Nature, and the Utilities of common Life.

1800 W. Taylor in J. W. Robberds Mem. W. Taylor (1843) I. 355 Genius never was remarkable for teaching the practical utilities.

1876 J. G. Holland Story of Sevenoaks (new ed.) xii. 169 It had lifted him above the bare utilities of a house, so that he could see the use of beauty.

1908 S. E. White Riverman xxviii Heinzman wanted the improvements..sold as a public utility to the highest bidder.

1848 J. S. Mill Princ. Polit. Econ. I. i. iii. 56 What we produce..is always..an utility. Labour is not creative of objects, but of utilities.

1904 R. T. Ely & Wicker Elem. Princ. Economics 81 A good or utility is anything which can satisfy a human want.

1930 Daily Express 6 Sept. 2/6 Utilities joined in the forward movement, which gathered considerable momentum in the final dealings, and the closing was strong.

1935 Economist 26 Jan. 195/1 Steel shares were merely steady, but utilities were inclined to take fresh heart... Mayor La Guardia indeed turned his attention this week from power utilities to the transit companies.

1936 L. C. Douglas White Banners iii. 46 It was a new..sensation to be free of bill-collectors... You would have thought him another person than the..apologizer..who had abased himself before..the credit departments of the stores and the utilities.

1942 Sun (Baltimore) 7 Mar. 20 Additional housing..within the limits of existing utilities..is immediately desirable.

1957 Encycl. Brit. XVIII. 474/1 The Dow Jones averages..were based on 30 industrials, 20 railroads and 15 utilities.

1968 Globe & Mail (Toronto) 17 Feb. 5/1 Toronto Hydro's request for a 700-foot smokestack on the..steam heating utility.

1974 N.Y. Times 8 Dec. iv. 3/1 American Electric Power Co., the nation's largest privately owned utility.

1803 T. Wilkinson Let. in A. Mathews Mem. C. Mathews (1838) I. xvii. 359 I take it for granted in very full plays you will..not object to pantomine utility, being a lord mayor, a witch, &c.

1846 G. A. À Beckett Quizziol. Brit. Drama 10 The heavy man, who is paid thirty shillings a week for doing the ‘respectable utility’.

1885 J. K. Jerome On Stage 80 A ‘lead’ may get three pounds.., and a young ‘utility’ thinks himself very well off indeed on a guinea.

1889 H. B. Baker London Stage II. 168 She was playing utility, that is to say, going on for anything, at the Park Theatre.

1944 Coast to Coast 1943 162 They walked..to where a fairly new utility was parked with one or two other cars and an old truck.

1949 Automobile & Carriage Builders' Jrnl. Nov. 34 (caption) Two views of an Alvis Fourteen utility.

1960 Guardian 28 Dec. 2/3 I bought a 1949 Jowett Bradford utility two years ago.

1961 D. Stuart Driven iv. 40 He had come to the well in the utility and found the footmen washing their clothes.

1968 K. Weatherly Roo Shooter 101 As he passed the bore he noticed a very battered looking utility parked there.

1971 N.Z. Listener 8 Nov. 15/5 He got in the utility by Honi, who waited with the motor running.

1984 Auckland Star 2 Mar. a3/7 A 54-year-old Southland man..died in a four-wheel drive utility accident.

1945 J. B. Priestley Three Men in New Suits ii. 12 His clothes were rather like yours. He must have been dressed in his best Utility.

1957 J. Braine Room at Top xviii. 164 The suit was my demob Utility.

1972 Computers & Humanities 6 277 There are..a number of natural-language utilities available, but often they do not fit exactly the user's research design.

1983 Daily Tel. 30 Apr. 25/3 Commodore..has now produced a utility, called ‘ simons basic’ which is both delightful and infuriating to use.

1976 Field 18 Nov. 948 (advt.) Drawing room, dining room, study, cloakroom, kitchen, utility, etc.

1926 A. E. Taylor Plato xvi. 431 Our question is not what ‘art’ has the..greatest utility-value, but simply which sets up the most severe standard of truth and accuracy.

1974 B. Pearce tr. S. Amin Accumulation on World Scale I. i. 64 It is impossible to ‘measure’ statistically the advantage (or disadvantage) that the underdeveloped countries derive from international exchange, whether one looks at the matter from the angle of labor value or from that of utility value.

1976 National Observer (U.S.) 24 Jan. 13/3 Warmer-than-usual weather has reduced the schools' projected utility bills.

1984 New Yorker 30 Jan. 48/1 Whether it's utility bills or telephone bills or taxes or health costs or heating costs, it seems that the cost of the average family raising their family is going up.

1926 Daily Colonist (Victoria, Brit. Columbia) 1 Jan. 18/3 The progress and prosperity of a community naturally is reflected in the fortunes of the utility companies whose duty it is to supply such essentials as light, water, power, [etc.].

1980 Amer. Speech 55 54 Presumably, the utility companies..specify certain hours of the day as the peak hours.

1931 F. L. Allen Only Yesterday iii. 59 Book-censors, Jew-haters, Negro-haters, landlords, manufacturers, utility executives, upholders of every sort of cause,..all wrapped themselves in Old Glory and the mantle of the Founding Fathers.

1979 Time 8 Jan. 39/1 Says a utility executive in Iowa: ‘People have been had too many times.’

1961 Webster's 3rd New Internat. Dict. Eng. Lang. at Utility pole His car sideswiped a utility pole. Springfield (Mass.) Union.

1973 Advocate-News (Barbados) 15 Feb. 4/2 The car fell into a three-foot gully and came to rest against a utility pole which kept it from overturning.

1968 Listener 22 Aug. 235/1 Ugly poles carrying utility wires.

1973 Sunday Advocate-News (Barbados) 25 Feb. 18/6 We experience a lot of damage done to roofs by overhanging trees over-hanging verandahs and low-hanging utility wires.

1879 Era Almanack 46 The drudgery of ‘utility’ business.