The corpus record — Latin

utilitas

quality of being useful

Generated live from the audited Latin corpus — every figure on this page is a database query, not prose from memory.

Where it lives

De Officiis 96 · 28.34/10k
De Partitione Oratoria 16 · 16.34/10k
Laelius De Amicitia 14 · 15/10k
De Inventione 39 · 11.78/10k
De Provinciis Consularibus In Senatu 6 · 11.71/10k
Dialogus de Oratoribus 9 · 9.68/10k
de Finibus Bonorum et Malorum 44 · 8.8/10k
De Architectura 38 · 6.59/10k
De Imperio Cn. Pompei Ad Quirites 4 · 6/10k
De Republica 13 · 5.96/10k
de Natura Deorum 21 · 5.87/10k
Themistocles 1 · 5.84/10k

Densest 12 of 114 attested works shown, by occurrences per 10,000 attested tokens.

What it meant

1. utilitas — de Vaan

utilitas 'quality of being useful' (P1.+), utensilis 'that can be made use of (Varro+); urns, -us 'use, need, value' (PI.+), usura *use, enjoyment; interest' (PI.+), usurarius 'provided on loan' (PL+), usurpare 4to Carry out, make use of, take possession of (P1.+), imisitatus 'unusual' (LuciL+); abuti 'to use up, exploit, abuse' (PL+). Pit *oit-e/o- 'to use', *oisso- 4used\ It cognates: Pael. oisa [ppp. abl.sg.fj … — [de Vaan, s.v. utilitas, p. 662]

2. ūtĭlĭtas — Lewis & Short

ūtĭlĭtas, ātis (

I gen. plur. utilitatum and utilitatium), f. utilis, use, usefulness, utility, serviceableness, service, expediency, benefit, profit, advantage (used equally in sing. and plur.): commodis utilitatique servire, Cic. Q. Fr. 1, 1, 8, § 24: enitendum est, ut ostendas, in eā re, quam defendas, aut dignitatem inesse aut utilitatem ... nihil ad utilitatem suam referre, id. de Or. 2, 51, 207: etiamsi nulla sit utilitas ex amicitiā, id. Fin. 1, 20, 69: si ea (justitia) quae propter utilitatem constituitur, utilitate aliā convellitur, id. Leg. 1, 15, 42: incidunt multae saepe causae, quae conturbent animos utilitatis specie, id. Off. 3, 10, 40: nihil tam secundum naturam quam utilitas, id. ib. 3, 8, 35: utilitas justi prope mater et aequi, Hor. S. 1, 3, 98: persaepe evenit, ut utilitas cum honestate certet, Cic. Part. Or. 25, 89: usus est familiā, si utilitate judicandum est, optima, si forma, vix mediocri, Nep. Att. 13, 3: satin' ego oculis utilitatem obtineo sincere an parum? i. e. have I the right use of my eyes? do I see aright? Plaut. Ep. 5, 1, 28: in eā re utilitatem ego faciam ut cognoscas meam, i. e. how useful I can be, Ter. Eun. 2, 3, 18: si et belli utilitatem et pacis dignitatem retinere vultis, what is useful for war, Cic. Imp. Pomp. 6, 14: neque de fortitudine quid detrahitur neque de utilitate, Dig. 21, 1, 38, § 7.—Plur.: nihil de utilitatibus, nihil de commodis suis cogitare, Cic. Fin. 1, 10, 34: natura consultrix et provida utilitatum opportunitatumque omnium, id. N. D. 2, 22, 58: utilitates ex amicitiā maximae capientur, id. Lael. 9, 32: (Trio) mirabiles utilitates mihi praebet, id. Att. 7, 5, 2: teque Alexandrinum bellum gerente utilitatibus tuis paruit, id. Deiot. 5, 13: utilitatibus tuis possum carere, i. e. I can do without your services, id. Fam. 16, 3, 2: utilitates aut in constituendis aut in conservandis civitatibus constitutas, id. de Or. 1, 9, 36; 1, 43, 193.

In the wild

utilitatem Cicero, De Oratore 2.332
Utilitatis Cicero, de Finibus Bonorum et Malorum 2.84
utilitatem Cicero, De Oratore 3.181
utilitatem Cicero, Tusculanae Disputationes 5.72.p1
utilitates Vitruvius, De Architectura 1.5.8
utilitas Cicero, De Officiis 1.151.p1

6 of 790 attestations shown.

Where it came from

de Vaan, Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages (Brill 2008) Treated in de Vaan, Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages (Brill 2008) s.v. utilitas (scan p. 662; entry #1902). Root candidates: *oisso-, *h3eit-, *oit-.

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Latin text and lemmatization derived from the Perseus Digital Library (canonical-latinLit), CC BY-SA 4.0. Lewis & Short (public domain) via Perseus. This derived data is shared under the same CC BY-SA 4.0 license.