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Utility vs Practical - What's the difference?

utility | practical |

As nouns the difference between utility and practical

is that utility is the state or condition of being useful; usefulness while practical is a part of an exam or series of exams in which the candidate has to demonstrate their practical ability.

As an adjective practical is

based on practice or action rather than theory or hypothesis.

utility

English

Noun

(utilities)
  • The state or condition of being useful; usefulness.
  • Something that is useful.
  • (economics) The ability of a commodity to satisfy needs or wants; the satisfaction experienced by the consumer of that commodity.
  • (business, finance) A service provider, such as an electric company or water company; or , the securities of such a provider.
  • (computing) A software program designed to perform a single task or a small range of tasks, often to help manage and tune computer hardware, an operating system or application software.
  • I've bought a new disk utility that can recover deleted files.
  • (sports) The ability to play multiple positions.
  • Synonyms

    * (state of being useful) usefulness, * See also

    practical

    English

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • (British) A part of an exam or series of exams in which the candidate has to demonstrate their practical ability
  • Adjective

    (en adjective)
  • Based on practice or action rather than theory or hypothesis
  • Jack didn't get an engineering degree, but has practical knowledge of metalworking.
  • Being likely to be effective and applicable to a real situation; able to be put to use
  • Jack's knowledge has the practical benefit of giving us useful prototype parts.
  • Of a person, having skills or knowledge that are practical
  • All in all, Jack's a very practical chap

    Antonyms

    * (based on practice or action) theoretical * (being likely to effective and applicable to a real situation) impractical * (of a person) impractical

    Derived terms

    * practicality * practically