When to use utilize and how can you utilize use?

Does the misuse of utilize get up your nose? Do you feel like the author is trying to come across as more knowledgeable than they really are by using that word? You are not alone. Utilize (or utilise) is one of those words that was picked up from its little niche and dropped into the place usually occupied by use, presumably on the grounds that seven letters were better than three. It is commonly found in the company of other business jargon and it has been bugging me for years.

Use

Use is a perfectly helpful word that everyone understands but just for the record, the Oxford Dictionaries gives the following definition:

Take, hold, or deploy (something) as a means of accomplishing or achieving something.

We can use use as I have in this sentence. We use a toothbrush to clean our teeth. I use my blue teeshirt to bring together the other colours of my outfit. I use cardboard boxes to hold my belongings when I shift house.

Use is easy. We use it all the time and never even think about it. But, somehow, this seems to devalue it in the eyes of those trying to make their writing look more important. These people want more, they want a longer and more impressive sounding word...they want utilize.

Utilize

Utilize has its own meaning and it is not quite the same as use. According to our friends at Oxford Dictionaries again the definition is:

Make practical and effective use of

Bill Bryson in Bryson's Dictionary for Writers and Editors writes that we can also use utilize for 'making use of something that wasn't intended for the purpose...or for extracting maximum value'.

I can utilize my blue teeshirt to make a cat house. I can utilize the offcuts of dress fabric to make rag rugs. If the cardboard box maker utilizes the cardboard carefully they will be able to get more than one box out of each sheet of cardboard.

So, there is a place for utilize, just not as a replacement for use. The (almost) final word must go to Eric Partridge who says in Usage and Abusage says that utilize is

   '...99 times out of 100, much inferior to use...the one other time [it is] merely inferior.

Think carefully before using utilize.