Origin and history of utility

c. 1200, usen, "employ for a purpose," from Old French user "employ, make use of, practice, frequent," from Vulgar Latin *usare "use," from stem of Latin uti "make use of, profit by, take advantage of, enjoy, apply, consume" (in Old Latin oeti "use, employ, exercise, perform"), a word of uncertain origin. Related: Used; using. It took senses of Old English brucan (see brook (v.)).

For intransitive senses (used to), see used. From c. 1300 as "speak or write a language;" by mid-14c. as "consume" (food, medicine). From late 14c. as "take advantage of" a situation, "seize" an opportunity; "enjoy, have a right to." To use up "consume entirely" is by 1785.

"advocate of utilitarianism; one guided by the doctrine of the greatest happiness for the greatest number," 1781, coined by Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832) from utility + -arian on the model of + unitarian, etc. Utility had been used in philosophy by Hume for "capacity to satisfy the needs or desires of all or the greatest majority."

Utilitarian is attested by 1802 as an adjective; in the general sense of "pertaining to utility, having regard to utility rather than beauty," by 1847.

[Bentham] had a phrase, expressive of the view he took of all moral speculations to which his method had not been applied, or (which he considered as the same thing) not founded on a recognition of utility as the moral standard ; this phrase was "vague generalities." Whatever presented itself to him in such a shape, he dismissed as unworthy of notice, or dwelt upon only to denounce as absurd. He did not heed, or rather the nature of his mind prevented it from occurring to him, that these generalities contained the whole unanalyzed experience of the human race. [John Stuart Mill, "The Works of Jeremy Bentham," London and Westminster Review, August 1838]

Related: Utilitarianize.