Useful \Use"ful\, a.
Full of use, advantage, or profit; producing, or having power
to produce, good; serviceable for any end or object; helpful
toward advancing any purpose; beneficial; profitable;
advantageous; as, vessels and instruments useful in a family;
books useful for improvement; useful knowledge; useful arts.
[1913 Webster]
To what can I useful! --Milton.
[1913 Webster]
The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48
useful
adj 1: being of use or service; "the girl felt motherly and
useful"; "a useful job"; "a useful member of society"
[syn: utile] [ant: useless]
2: of great importance or use or service; "useful information";
"valuable advice" [syn: valuable, of value]
3: capable of being turned to use or account; "useful
applications of calculus"
4: having a useful function; "utilitarian steel tables" [syn: utilitarian]
WordNet (r) 2.0
117 Moby Thesaurus words for "useful":
advantageous, advisable, agential, agentival, agentive, aidful,
appropriate, assisting, auspicious, banausic, becoming, befitting,
beneficial, benevolent, bon, bonny, brave, braw, bueno, capital,
cogent, commendable, commodious, conducive, congruous,
constructive, contributory, convenient, decent, desirable,
effective, elegant, employable, estimable, excellent, expedient,
facilitating, fair, famous, favorable, favoring, feasible,
felicitous, fine, fit, fitten, fitting, forwarding, fructuous,
fruitful, functional, furthersome, gainful, good, good for, goodly,
grand, handy, happy, healthy, helpful, instrumental, intermediary,
kind, laudable, likely, mediating, mediatorial, meet, ministerial,
ministering, nice, noble, of general utility, of help, of service,
of use, opportune, pleasant, politic, positive, practicable,
practical, pragmatical, productive, profitable, promoting, proper,
propitious, recommendable, regal, remedial, right, royal, salutary,
seasonable, seemly, serviceable, skillful, sortable, sound,
splendid, subservient, suitable, therapeutic, timely,
to be desired, toward, usable, utilitarian, valid, valuable,
very good, virtuous, well-timed, wise, worthwhile
Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0
USEFUL. That which may be put into beneficial practice.
2. The patent act of congress of July 4, 1836, sect. 6, in describing
the subjects of patents, mentions "new and useful art," and "new and useful
improvement." To entitle the inventor to a patent, his invention must, to a
certain extent, be beneficial to the community, and not be for an unlawful
object, or frivolous, or insignificant. 1 Mason, 182; 1 Pet. C. C. R. 322; 1
Bald. 303; 14 Pick. 217; Paine, 203.
Bouvier's Law Dictionary, Revised 6th Ed (1856)
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