Disutility

//ˌdɪsjuːˈtɪlɪti// noun

noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    uselessness, a lack of utility countable, uncountable

    "1906, George Bernard Shaw, The Doctor's Dilemma: Preface Up to a certain point doctors, like carpenters and masons, must earn their living by doing the work that the public wants from them; and as it is not in the nature of things possible that such public want should be based on unmixed disutility, it may be admitted that doctors have their uses, real as well as imaginary."

  2. 2
    negative utility countable, uncountable
  3. 3
    illbeing countable, uncountable

Synonyms

All synonyms
inutility

Example

More examples

"1906, George Bernard Shaw, The Doctor's Dilemma: Preface Up to a certain point doctors, like carpenters and masons, must earn their living by doing the work that the public wants from them; and as it is not in the nature of things possible that such public want should be based on unmixed disutility, it may be admitted that doctors have their uses, real as well as imaginary."

Etymology

From dis- + utility.

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.