English
utility
Utility comes from Old French utilite ‘usefulness’, and goes back to Latin uti ‘to use’.
- Latinc. 75 BCE–200 CEuti1‘to use’
- Latinc. 75 BCE–200 CEūtilitās1‘usefulness, utility’
- Old Frenchc. 842–1400utilite1‘usefulness’
- Middle Englishc. 1150–1500utilite1‘utility, usefulness’
- Englishearliest quotation 1817utility1
attested reconstructed ? uncertain or disputed deepest recorded ancestor
- 1 Wiktionary, English utility
- Earliest quotation in Wiktionary’s entry: 1817, Jane Austen, III: “The profession has its utility, but I should be…”.
Earlier history not traced here. See Wiktionary.
Lineage
- Latinc. 75 BCE–200 CEutiWiktionary, English utility‘to use’
- Latinc. 75 BCE–200 CEūtilitāsWiktionary, English utility‘usefulness, utility’
- Old Frenchc. 842–1400utiliteWiktionary, English utility‘usefulness’
- Middle Englishc. 1150–1500utiliteWiktionary, English utility‘utility, usefulness’
- Englishearliest quotation 1817utilityWiktionary, English utility. Earliest quotation in Wiktionary’s entry: 1817, Jane Austen, III: “The profession has its utility, but I should be…”
Equivalent to utile + -ity
Proto-Italic *oitōr ‘to use, employ’
Latin ūtor ‘use’
Latin ūtilis ‘useful, serviceable, beneficial, profitable,…’
Old French utele
Middle French utile ‘useful’
English utile
Linked words
through Latin uti ‘to use’
Today it means
noun The state or condition of being useful; usefulness.
Sources
Sources: Wiktionary, “utility”. By Wiktionary contributors, CC BY-SA 4.0, via kaikki.org (dump of Oct 3 2026); text adapted and restructured. Language periods are conventional ranges, not dates for this word. License.
Etymograph / Latin uti / utility