public utility

noun

: a business organization (such as an electric company) performing a public service and subject to special governmental regulation

Examples of public utility in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web California ‘Life-threatening’ storm to slam Southern California beginning Sunday, last for days Feb. 3, 2024 Regional public utilities, including California Edison and the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, were preparing to respond to service outages and downed power lines. Hayley Smith, Los Angeles Times, 4 Feb. 2024 The city of Greenville’s public utility apologized Saturday for a widespread outage whose cause remained a mystery hours after power was restored. Joe Marusak, Charlotte Observer, 23 Mar. 2024 The bosses brought in recent Chinese immigrants to tend indoor crops, often stealing industrial quantities of water and power from public utility systems for their operations. Sebastian Rotella, ProPublica, 14 Mar. 2024 Changes like those made in Senate Bill 291 represent the existing whack-a-mole approach to regulating utilities across America, while a growing number of voices are calling for public utilities commissions and lawmakers to make fundamental changes to how utilities bill customers. The Denver Post Editorial Board, The Denver Post, 5 Feb. 2024 There is arguably public utility to knowing her CO2 production as climate change rages and her fans, essentially, fund her flights. Mankaprr Conteh, Rolling Stone, 24 Feb. 2024 The safety and enforcement division alleged PG&E violated seven CPUC public utility codes. Ishani Desai, Sacramento Bee, 25 Jan. 2024 In Jackson, Mississippi, 12,000 customers, largely in the west and south areas of the city, saw low to no water pressure at the height of last week's freeze, according to Jackson's public utility service, JXN Water. Leah Sarnoff, ABC News, 24 Jan. 2024 The other three are taxes on sales at Nationals Park; public utilities; and rent that the team pays D.C. for the ballpark. Andrew Golden, Washington Post, 2 Jan. 2024

These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'public utility.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

Word History

First Known Use

1895, in the meaning defined above

Time Traveler
The first known use of public utility was in 1895

Dictionary Entries Near public utility

Cite this Entry

“Public utility.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/public%20utility. Accessed 19 Apr. 2024.

Kids Definition

public utility

noun
: a business organization performing a public service and subject to special governmental regulation

Legal Definition

public utility

noun
: a business organization (as an electric company) performing a public service and subject to special government regulation

More from Merriam-Webster on public utility

Last Updated: - Updated example sentences
Love words? Need even more definitions?

Subscribe to America's largest dictionary and get thousands more definitions and advanced search—ad free!