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Useful vs Important - What's the difference?

useful | important |

As adjectives the difference between useful and important

is that useful is having a practical or beneficial use while important is having relevant and crucial value.

useful

English

Adjective

(en adjective)
  • Having a practical or beneficial use.
  • * {{quote-magazine, year=2013, month=July-August, author= Lee S. Langston, magazine=(American Scientist)
  • , title= The Adaptable Gas Turbine , passage=Turbines have been around for a long time—windmills and water wheels are early examples. The name comes from the Latin turbo'', meaning ''vortex , and thus the defining property of a turbine is that a fluid or gas turns the blades of a rotor, which is attached to a shaft that can perform useful work.}}

    Usage notes

    * Prepositions: useful'' is used in ''useful for '', ''useful for '' and ''useful to ''. The words ''useful to'' are also found in construction such as ''It is useful to do'', in which ''to marks an infinitive rather than being a preposition.

    Synonyms

    * noteful * serviceable * utilitarian

    Antonyms

    * unuseful * useless * harmful

    important

    English

    Adjective

    (en adjective)
  • Having relevant and crucial value.
  • :
  • *
  • *:Thus, when he drew up instructions in lawyer language, he expressed the important words by an initial, a medial, or a final consonant, and made scratches for all the words between; his clerks, however, understood him very well.
  • *{{quote-book, year=1963, author=(Margery Allingham), title=(The China Governess)
  • , chapter=20 citation , passage=The story struck the depressingly familiar note with which true stories ring in the tried ears of experienced policemen.
  • *1988, (Robert Ferro), Second Son :
  • *:For this was the most important thing, that when a person felt strongly about an issue in life, it mustn’t be ignored by others; for if it was, everything subsequent to it would turn out badly, even though there should seem to be no direct connection.
  • *{{quote-magazine, year=2013, month=May-June, author= Katrina G. Claw
  • , title= Rapid Evolution in Eggs and Sperm , volume=101, issue=3, magazine=(American Scientist) , passage=In plants, the ability to recognize self from nonself plays an important role in fertilization, because self-fertilization will result in less diverse offspring than fertilization with pollen from another individual.}}

    Synonyms

    * (l) * See also

    Antonyms

    * unimportant * negligible

    Derived terms

    * importantly, importantness, unimportant, VIP