USE • DICTIONARY ONE.COM • Definition of Use

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/jus/ /juz/ Listen

Use

verb

(past & past part. used; pres. part. using)

1.

Put into service; make work or employ for a particular purpose or for its inherent or natural purpose. Synonyms: apply, employ, utilise, utilize. "We only use Spanish at home" , "I can't use this tool" , "Apply a magnetic field here" , "This thinking was applied to many projects" , "How do you utilize this tool?" , "I apply this rule to get good results" , "Use the plastic bags to store the food" , "He doesn't know how to use a computer"

2.

Take or consume (regularly or habitually). Synonym: habituate.

3.

Use up, consume fully. Synonym: expend.

4.

Seek or achieve an end by using to one's advantage. "The president's wife used her good connections"

5.

Avail oneself to. Synonyms: apply, practice. "Practice a religion" , "Use care when going down the stairs" , "Use your common sense" , "Practice non-violent resistance"

6.

Habitually do something (use only in the past tense). "I used to get sick when I ate in that dining hall" , "They used to vacation in the Bahamas"

noun

1.

The act of using. Synonyms: employment, exercise, usage, utilisation, utilization. "Skilled in the utilization of computers"

2.

What something is used for. Synonyms: function, purpose, role. "Ballet is beautiful but what use is it?"

3.

A particular service. "Patrons have their uses"

4.

(economics) the utilization of economic goods to satisfy needs or in manufacturing. Synonyms: consumption, economic consumption, usance, use of goods and services.

5.

(psychology) an automatic pattern of behavior in reaction to a specific situation; may be inherited or acquired through frequent repetition. Synonym: habit. "She had a habit twirling the ends of her hair" , "Long use had hardened him to it"

6.

Exerting shrewd or devious influence especially for one's own advantage. Synonym: manipulation.

7.

(law) the exercise of the legal right to enjoy the benefits of owning property. Synonym: enjoyment.

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WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University

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"Use" Quotes from Famous Books

... drugstore he stopped, seeing a long-distance telephone booth inside. It was a famous drugstore, and contained one of the first private telephone booths ever erected. "I want to use your 'phone a minute," he said to ...

— Sister Carrie • Theodore Dreiser

... the benefit of any medical reader, that it involved the use of two pails, one full of water, the other empty. When he got through the ablution, one pail was empty, and the other full. My authority for the actuality of this remarkable proceeding was some inmate of the house at the time, and I give credence to the story because it was not one likely ...

— The Reminiscences of an Astronomer • Simon Newcomb

... you letters of introduction. "Les morts vont vite," it is true, and I am dead to that world, not wholly without the longings of a would-be revenant; but a ghost may still claim some privileges of memory, and my friends would be hospitable to you. Only, I strongly suspect that you would not use the letters if I gave them. You prefer to make your own start; isn't it so? Well; I have written to a few. Sooner or later you will meet with them. Those things always happen even in New York.... Be sure to write me all about the job when you ...

— Success - A Novel • Samuel Hopkins Adams

... therefore, remained in the corn-loft but a huge heap of straw. The provident old man followed the same plan with his cellar, and sold all the wine it contained, with the exception of one cask, which was reserved for his own and his children's use. ...

— The Life of St. Frances of Rome, and Others • Georgiana Fullerton

... its mouth, is eighty yards, and to this distance it is navigable for boats of twenty tons burthen. At first its waters are pure and sweet, but they gradually become corrupted, and at Hindyan they are so brackish as not to be fit for use. The Jerahi rises from several sources in the Kuh Margun, a lofty and precipitous range, forming the continuation of the chain of Zagros. about long. 50 deg. to 51 deg., and lat. 31 deg. 30'. These head-streams ...

— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 4. (of 7): Babylon • George Rawlinson

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