(economics) a measure that is to be maximized in any situation involving choice

Usage examples of utility.

Court refused to decide any constitutional issues arising out of the Public Utility Holding Company Act of 1935 except the registration provisions because the cross bill in which the company had asked for a declaration that the whole act was unconstitutional was regarded as presenting a variety of hypothetical questions that might never become real.

Yet even such may find their utility, and indirectly serve masters, perhaps sweating in the public kitchens of the high cylinders, or laboring, neck-locked, at the looms in the cloth mills, or digging, chained with others, in the sul fields.

Finn watched Cyd crouch on the parking lot floor, examining systematically, disassembling and reassembling a couple of different weapons, picking out and trying on some of the light armor, fitting out a utility belt.

She was casually dressed, but the sidearm and small utility box on a belt around her waist marked her as a cymol cop.

Baby steps toward deregulation were forcing utilities to open their transmission lines to anyone, and Skilling wanted Enron to jump in with both feet.

With deregulation spreading-cutting direct ties between utilities and the users of power-every customer could soon be up for grabs.

A symphony of glass and concrete, the towers are the corporate epicenter for Portland General Electric, a utility that served Oregon and was pushing for the deregulation of electricity.

Sure, Kean said, Enron contributed to California politicians, but so did the utilities, which fought deregulation tooth and nail.

At the beginning of their acquaintance her interest in Markham had not been unlike that of the motherly hen in the doings of the newly hatched duckling with which she differed as to the practical utility of duckponds.

In all these cases the fred, which often amounted to half the compensation, went to the folkmote, and from times immemorial it used to be applied to works of common utility and defence.

Persimmon Sea flew the Suaniset utility vehicle, an ungainly Apex A-15, lacking all style or flair and Schaine suspected that Gerd Jemasze intended nothing less than a demonstration of contempt for the fads of Olanje.

One farmer, who had complained of a saucer that had hovered over his farm for several nights in succession, was left with an incredible jump in his light bill as a strange kind of proof that the UFO had been there and had been interfering with the utilities on his farm.

Of personal contributions to the literature of the subject, during the past third of a century, nearly everything has been more or less polemical, called forth by either exaggeration of utility, inaccuracy of assertion, or misstatement of fact.

Dalik Ophon was standing next to a woman clad in combat utilities, Shalla Inam, local time liaison for AD 2294.

I left in silence, went and bought a multiburner, a cc of Codeine-Curarine, a jolter, and a utilities map, still in silence.