Dictionaries › English

use

Pronunciation: /juːs/

The English word “use” has 20 meanings listed here.

noun

  1. The act of using.
  2. The act of consuming alcohol or narcotics.
  3. Usefulness, utility, benefit; purpose, point.
  4. A function; a purpose for which something may be employed.
  5. Occasion or need to employ; necessity.
  6. Interest for lent money; premium paid for the use of something; usury.
  7. Continued or repeated practice; usage; habit.
  8. Common occurrence; ordinary experience.
  9. A special form of a rite adopted for use in a particular context, often a diocese.
  10. A slab of iron welded to the side of a forging, such as a shaft, near the end, and afterward drawn down, by hammering, so as to lengthen the forging.

verb

  1. To employ; to apply; to utilize.
  2. To expend; to consume by employing.
  3. To exploit.
  4. To consume (alcohol, drugs, etc), especially regularly.
  5. To consume a previously specified substance, especially a drug to which one is addicted.
  6. To benefit from; to be able to employ or stand.
  7. To suggest or request that other people employ a specific set of gender pronouns when referring to the subject.
  8. To accustom; to habituate. (Now common only in participial form. Uses the same pronunciation as the noun; see usage notes.)
  9. To accustom oneself.
  10. To habitually do; to be wont to do. (Now chiefly in past-tense forms; see used to.)

Etymology

Inherited from Middle English use, from Old French us, from Latin ūsus (“use, custom, skill, habit”), from past participle stem of ūtor (“use”). Displaced native Middle English note (“use”) (see note) from Old English notu; Middle English nutte (“use”) from Old English nytt; as well as Old English fricu and Old English sidu.

Keep exploring: in the interactive dictionary every word of a definition is a link. Open “use” there

More English words

About this dictionary

The English dictionary on Glottosphere has 650,529 entries with a page. Browse the English dictionary.

Definitions are from Wiktionary, extracted by Kaikki.org, and are available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.