useful

[ yoos-fuhl ]

adjective

1. being of use or service; serving some purpose; advantageous, helpful, or of good effect:

   a useful member of society.

   Synonyms: beneficial, efficacious, profitable

   Antonyms: useless

2. of practical use, as for doing work; producing material results; supplying common needs:

   the useful arts; useful work.

   Synonyms: beneficial, efficacious, profitable

   Antonyms: useless

useful

/ ˈjuːsfʊl /

adjective

1. able to be used advantageously, beneficially, or for several purposes; helpful or serviceable
2. informal.
   commendable or capable

   a useful term's work

noun

1. informal.
   an odd-jobman or general factotum

Derived Forms

• ˈusefully, adverb
• ˈusefulness, noun

Other Words From

• useful·ly adverb
• useful·ness noun
• un·useful adjective
• un·useful·ly adverb
• un·useful·ness noun

Word History and Origins

Origin of useful¹

First recorded in 1585–95; use + -ful

Example Sentences

We went through the house and started to gather up all the duplicates we could find of various useful things, including 10 tablecloths!

From Washington Post

Nor did the researchers focus on individual differences that might be useful to know, like ethnicity or gender differences.

From Freakonomics

His elegant career, through age 36, strongly resembles that of Andy Pettitte, Mike Mussina, Tim Hudson and Justin Verlander, who still had useful years left.

From Washington Post

Google even mentions the value of alt text in images, saying that alt text provides them with useful information about the image that they can use to help determine the best image to return for a user’s query.

From Search Engine Watch

To do anything useful with such a system, you need to be able to arbitrarily connect any two qubits in the network no matter how far apart they are.

From Singularity Hub 

I still do find it a tremendously useful device to invent a character and have the character sing the song.

From The Daily Beast

But even when the jet will be able to shoot its gun, the F-35 barely carries enough ammunition to make the weapon useful.

From The Daily Beast

However useful they might be for external purposes, they will always be dangerous internally.

From The Daily Beast

For the aficionado or the neophyte, Comics is a useful overview of a richly creative period in a burgeoning art.

From The Daily Beast

For those unfamiliar with Michals, an annotated biography and useful essays are included.

From The Daily Beast

It will be a busy session; and I want to see if I can't become a useful public man.

From Project Gutenberg

It is especially useful with cultures upon serum media, but is applicable also to the sputum.

From Project Gutenberg

In connection with this step the practice of melodies is useful, if one has musical taste.

From Project Gutenberg

To keep the frond in position it may be useful to put a book on the paper as it is spread out.

From Project Gutenberg

It has since been enlarged, and is now much more ornamental as well as being useful.

From Project Gutenberg

Related Words

• advantageous
• appropriate
• convenient
• effective
• favorable
• fruitful
• good
• handy
• helpful
• practical
• pragmatic
• profitable
• proper
• suitable