From Longman Dictionary of Contemporary Englishutilityu‧til‧i‧ty /juːˈtɪləti/ ●○○ AWL noun (plural utilities) 1 [countable usually plural]SERVICES a service such as gas or electricity provided for people to use Does your rent include utilities?2 [countable] a piece of computer software that has a particular use It’s a simple shareware utility that allows you to print signs and banners.3 [uncountable] formalUSEFUL the quality of being useful, or the degree to which something is useful
Examples from the Corpus
utility• It was paced by auto, chemical and utility stocks.• Pareto is in no doubt that the two types of utility, for and of a community, do not necessarily coincide.• However, other utilities may also bid for PowerGen.• They were manufacturing, the finance, insurance and real estate group, transportation and public utilities and government.• Demonstrations allow customers to get an immediate idea of a product's utility.• I have severe doubts about the utility of examinations on subjects which have been learned parrot-fashion.• Monopolies in industries like railways and various utilities need breaking up.From Longman Business Dictionaryutilityu‧til‧i‧ty /juːˈtɪləti/ noun (plural utilities)1[countable usually plural]COMMERCE a large company that provides services such as gas or electricityOne major electric utility has already given layoff notices to 150 workers.the public utilities2[countable usually plural] American EnglishCOMMERCE a service such as gas or electricity, provided for people to useDoes your rent include utilities?3[countable]computing a computer program that performs a simple actionThere are several reasons why you might want to use a data compression utility.Origin utility (1300-1400) Old French utilité, from Latin utilitas, from utilis “useful”, from uti; → USE1 