From Longman Dictionary of Contemporary Englishgeneral-purposeˌgeneral-ˈpurpose adjective [only before noun] USUALLYsuitable for most situations or jobs, or having a wide range of uses a general-purpose computer
Examples from the Corpus
general-purpose• All the computers we consider are general-purpose, at least in theory, although they may be oriented towards particular application areas.• Specific, narrow-targeted services should be developed either to replace or supplement general-purpose business information services.• Most research in the field has concentrated on modelling logical-sequential computation, which is well suited to general-purpose digital computers.• The remaining techniques have not given rise to general-purpose instruments but have proved useful in particular experiments.• Some of the programs, however, are of the general-purpose type.From Longman Business Dictionarygeneral-purposeˈgeneral-ˌpurpose adjective [only before a noun]1a general-purpose product is suitable for most uses or situations that such products are normally used fora general-purpose computergeneral-purpose telecommunications software2FINANCE general-purpose lending is used to finance a number of different thingsNew York Power Authority said it plans to issue about $180 million of general-purpose bonds to finance two projects. 