utilitarian

utilitarian (juːˌtɪlɪˈtɛərɪən)

—*adj*
1.	of or relating to utilitarianism
2.	designed for use rather than beauty

—n
3.	a person who believes in utilitarianism

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Word Origin & History

utilitarian

1781, coined by Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832) from utility. One guided by the doctrine of the greatest happiness for the greatest number. Utilitarianism is from 1827.

Example sentences

He worried about broken families and out-of-wedlock births, but entirely from a

utilitarian rather than a moral point of view.

It cannot be placed in a utilitarian context, because its violation of human

dignity is so grave it is an absolute evil.

Of the major chains, the store has regularly done the best job of being

utilitarian but not dull, casual but not loose.

But texting and the utilitarian mind-set are naturally corrosive toward poetry

and imagination.

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Matching Quote

"For it is owing to their wonder that men both now begin and at first began to philosophize.... And a man who is puzzled and wonders thinks himself ignorant ...; therefore since they philosophized in order to escape from ignorance, evidently they were pursuing science in order to know, and not for any utilitarian end."

-Aristotle