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Used vs Utilised - What's the difference?

used | utilised |

As verbs the difference between used and utilised

is that used is past tense of use while utilised is past tense of utilise.

As an adjective used

is that is or has or have been used.

used

English

Verb

(head)
  • (use)
  • * 1948 , , North from Mexico / The Spanish-Speaking People of The United States , J. B. Lippincott Company, page 75
  • In 1866 Colonel J. F. Meline noted that the rebozo had almost disappeared in Santa Fe and that hoop skirts, on sale in the stores, were being widely used .
    You used me!
  • (intransitive, as an auxiliary verb, now only in past tense) to perform habitually; to be accustomed [to doing something]
  • He used to live here, but moved away last year.

    Adjective

    (en adjective)
  • That is or has or have been used.
  • * {{quote-magazine, date=2013-08-03, volume=408, issue=8847, magazine=(The Economist)
  • , title= Boundary problems , passage=Economics is a messy discipline: too fluid to be a science, too rigorous to be an art. Perhaps it is fitting that economists’ most-used metric, gross domestic product (GDP), is a tangle too. GDP measures the total value of output in an economic territory. Its apparent simplicity explains why it is scrutinised down to tenths of a percentage point every month.}}
  • That has or have previously been owned by someone else.
  • Familiar through use; usual; accustomed.
  • * 1965 , (Bob Dylan), (Like a Rolling Stone)
  • Nobody's ever taught you how to live out on the street and now you're gonna have to get used to it.

    Synonyms

    * (having been used) * (previously owned by someone else) pre-owned, second-hand

    Antonyms

    * (having been used) unused * (previously owned by someone else) new

    Derived terms

    * usedness * well-used

    See also

    * used to

    Statistics

    *

    Anagrams

    * English heteronyms

    utilised

    English

    Verb

    (head)
  • (utilise)

  • utilise

    English

    Alternative forms

    * utilize

    Verb

    (utilis)
  • To make useful, to find a practical use for.
  • To make (l) of; to use.
  • To make best use of; to use to its fullest extent, potential, or ability.
  • To make do with; to use in manner different from that originally intendedT.A.R. Cheney, Getting the Words Right , Writer's Digest Books (1983).
  • Usage notes

    Many style guides have advised against utilize and utilise'', arguing that the simpler verb use is always preferable (and analogously, that the noun ''use'' is preferable to ''utilization'' and ''utilisation'').Sir Ernest Gowers 1965 ''The Complete Plain Words'' Oxford: Oxford University PressEric Partridge 1973 ''Usage and Abusage: A Guide to Good English'' England: Penguin BooksJohn E. Kahn (ed) 1985 ''The Right Word at the Right Time'' London:Readers DigestPam Peters 1995 ''The Cambridge Australian English Style Guide'' Cambridge:Cambridge University Press When used simply as a synonym in ordinary writing (as in “please ''utilise the rear door when exiting the aircraft”) it can strike readers as pretentious, and so should be used sparingly.New Oxford American Dictionary 3rd edition (c) 2010 by Oxford University Press, Inc. American novelist (David Foster Wallace) calls it a puff word.He continues: "Since it does nothing that good old use doesn't do, its extra letters and syllables don't make a writer seem smarter. I tell my students that using utilize makes you seem either pompous or so insecure that you'll use pointlessly big words in an attempt to look smart." Others argue that utilise has other senses, and is acceptable or even necessary (instead of (term)) in such senses. One such sense is “make best use of” (profitable, practical use, not just general use), as in “if we fail to utilise all resources, we will fail” – here the nuance is not simply “use”, but “make best use of”. Further, in American usage, (term) can imply use outside an object’s intended purpose.

    Synonyms

    * employ * exploit * use

    Derived terms

    * (l) * (l) * (l)

    References

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