utilitarian

Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

Her detailed, beautifully lighted paintings, of humble industrial scenes of corrugated ductwork, draped construction tarps and snaking wires, elevate these humble, utilitarian objects into tactile formal experiments.

From The Wall Street Journal • May 14, 2026

Since the 2000s the city's planners have been preoccupied with building more utilitarian infrastructure, with new sea bridges and coastal roads, radically transforming how the city looks today.

From BBC • Apr. 3, 2026

I think that, for those of us who love free markets and love capitalism and understand the utilitarian good of capitalism but also the morality of capitalism.

From The Wall Street Journal • Feb. 5, 2026

Completed in 1984, the hangar-like space blended industrial materials — metal cladding, stucco, exposed structure and utilitarian forms — with folded, sculptural masses and cheeky artistic moments.

From Los Angeles Times • Dec. 5, 2025

Here is Bertrand Russell using it to explain the movement called romanticism: The romantic movement is characterized, as a whole, by the substitution of aesthetic for utilitarian standards.

From "The Sense of Style" by Steven Pinker