as in unlimited
not limited or specialized in application or purpose
a general-purpose glue for routine household repairs
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Recent Examples of general-purpose
An October 2024 survey from Fierce Healthcare and the physician social network Sermo found that 76 percent of physicians use general-purpose LLMs to aid clinical decision-making.
—
Alexis Kayser, MSNBC Newsweek, 24 Sep. 2025
Founded in 2022, Figure aims to build general-purpose humanoid robots, though Fortune’s Jason del Rey questioned whether the company was exaggerating the extent to which its robots were being deployed with BMW.
—Jeremy Kahn, Fortune, 16 Sep. 2025
This motivates our proposal of a modular explainable AI agent (XAI agent) that's powered by banking domain-specific LLMs rather than general-purpose models.
—Ravi Gedela, Forbes.com, 15 Sep. 2025
Frontier models mean AIs that are trained on broad datasets, with general-purpose applications, for example, ChatGPT or Google Gemini, rather than a niche mobile app.
—PC Magazine, 14 Sep. 2025
See All Example Sentences for general-purpose
Alexis Kayser, MSNBC Newsweek, 24 Sep. 2025
Founded in 2022, Figure aims to build general-purpose humanoid robots, though Fortune’s Jason del Rey questioned whether the company was exaggerating the extent to which its robots were being deployed with BMW.
—Jeremy Kahn, Fortune, 16 Sep. 2025
This motivates our proposal of a modular explainable AI agent (XAI agent) that's powered by banking domain-specific LLMs rather than general-purpose models.
—Ravi Gedela, Forbes.com, 15 Sep. 2025
Frontier models mean AIs that are trained on broad datasets, with general-purpose applications, for example, ChatGPT or Google Gemini, rather than a niche mobile app.
—PC Magazine, 14 Sep. 2025
See All Example Sentences for general-purpose
Recent Examples of Synonyms for general-purpose
Adjective
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Please consider supporting local journalism and getting unlimited digital access.—
Leah Olajide,
Freep.com,
15 Oct. 2025
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Get a year of unlimited access for $25 $20 per month.—
Wes Gordon,
Architectural Digest,
15 Oct. 2025
Adjective
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For more on the Las Vegas Raiders and general NFL news, head over to Newsweek Sports.—
Evan Massey,
MSNBC Newsweek,
19 Oct. 2025
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Phil Rinn was among those who felt the momentum needed to continue through a general strike, halting the flow of work and consumerism until substantial changes were made.—
Stephanie Murray,
AZCentral.com,
18 Oct. 2025
Adjective
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The other reality is that what looked like a star-laden unrestricted-free-agent crop for July 2026 is already pretty thinned out at the top with all the re-signings.—
Pierre LeBrun,
New York Times,
9 Oct. 2025
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Mainly, as Marks mentioned, the Knicks and Mitchell did not agree to a contract extension this summer, and he is set to become an unrestricted free agent next summer.—
Ricardo Klein,
MSNBC Newsweek,
7 Oct. 2025
Cite this Entry
“General-purpose.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/general-purpose. Accessed 21 Oct. 2025.
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