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eing useful; usefulness; production of good; profitableness to some valuable end; as, the utility of manure upon land; the utility of the sciences; the utility of medicines. The utility of the enterprises was, however, so great and obvious that all opposition proved useless. Macaulay.

The faculty possessed by all substances capable of self- nourishment of manifesting the nutritive acts by changes of form, of volume, or of structure. Syd. Soc. Lex.

The quality of producing no valuable effect, or of coming to nothing; uselessness. The futility of this mode of philosophizing. Whewell.

Uselessness; the quality of being unprofitable; unprofitableness; as, the inutility of vain speculations and visionary projects.

y Bentham; the doctrine that the morality of actions is estimated and determined by their utility; also, the theory that the sensibility to pleasure and the recoil from pain are the only motives which influence human desires and actions, and that these are the sufficient explanation of ethical and jural conceptions.…

A small decorative object without practical utility.

To deprive of utility; to render useless. [R.] Mrs. Browning.

intimation or knowledge of something not visible or obvious. That truth id productive of utility, and utility indicative of truth, may be thus proved. Bp. Warburton.

Want of power to produce the desired or proper effect; inefficiency; ineffectualness; futility; uselessness; fruitlessness; as, the inefficacy of medicines or means. The seeming inefficacy of censures. Bp. Hall. The inefficacy was soon proved, like that of many similar medicines. James Gregory.

The view that the sanction of truth is its utility, or that truth is genuine only in so far as it is a valuable instrument. -- In`stru*men"tal*ist, n.

bes, as also by their double flexure. It is used in manufacturing articles of ornament or utility.

Futility; trifling talk or behavior; drollery. [R.] Dr. H. More.

Yielding of service; advantage derived; capability of being used; usefulness; utility. God made two great lights, great for their use To man. Milton. 'T is use alone that sanctifies expense. Pope.

The quality or state of being useful; utility; serviceableness; advantage. Addison.

Of or pertaining to utility; consisting in utility; as, utilitarian narrowness; a utilitarian indifference to art.

The doctrine that virtue is founded in utility, or that virtue is defined and enforced by its tendency to promote the highest happiness of the universe. J. S. Mill.

ful or desirable, or the degree of such property or sum of properties; worth; excellence; utility; importance.