English
utilization
Utilization comes from French utilisation ‘purpose, use, utilisation’, and goes back to Italian utile ‘useful’.
- Italianc. 1300–presentutile‘useful’
- Italian, derivedc. 1300–presentutilizzare‘to use, make use of, utilize’
- Frenchc. 1600–presentutiliser‘to use, to utilize’
- French, derivedc. 1600–presentutilisation‘purpose, use, utilisation’
- Englishearliest quotation 2022utilization
attested reconstructed ? uncertain or disputed
Earlier history uncertain.
Lineage
- Italianc. 1300–presentutile‘useful’
- Italian, derivedc. 1300–presentutilizzare‘to use, make use of, utilize’
- Frenchc. 1600–presentutiliser‘to use, to utilize’
- French, derivedc. 1600–presentutilisation‘purpose, use, utilisation’
- Englishearliest quotation 2022utilization
Earliest quotation: 2022, Vanessa Yurkevich, America needs immigrants to solve its labor shortage: “Skilled foreign farm workers are the backbone of US…”
Formed from utilize + -ation
Italian utile ‘useful’
Italian utilizzare ‘to use, make use of, utilize’
French utiliser ‘to use, to utilize’
English utilize
Linked words
through Proto-Indo-European *h₃eyt- ‘to take along, fetch’
through Latin ūtor ‘use’
through French utilisation ‘purpose, use, utilisation’
Today it means
noun US, Canada, and Oxford British English standard spelling of utilisation.
Language periods are conventional ranges, not dates for this word.
Etymograph / Italian utile / utilization