How to Use public utility in a Sentence

public utility

noun
Definition of public utilitynext
  • As a public utility, Google search would have to give others a better shot.
    — Dave Yost, Star Tribune, 8 July 2021
  • The body is known as the public utility commission in many other states.
    — Melissa Estrada, The Arizona Republic, 8 May 2022
  • Google’s critics have said for years that it should be treated like a public utility.
    — Tripp Mickle, WSJ, 8 June 2021
  • 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
  • For Kucinich, saving the public utility has been a crusade.
    — Robert Higgs, cleveland, 14 Aug. 2020
  • The sprawling Spanish-style home is hooked up to public utilities but is designed for more than two weeks of off-grid living.
    — James Tarmybloomberg, Los Angeles Times, 9 Aug. 2019
  • With nearly 3 billion users around the world, Facebook has a reach that’s closer to a public utility than a fun social app.
    — Washington Post, 11 Oct. 2021
  • He is considered one of the most knowledgeable experts on public utility law in the state.
    — Mark Gillispie, Star Tribune, 16 Nov. 2020
  • The spread of the novel coronavirus around the world has made many of us shut-ins and proven conclusively that the internet should be a public utility.
    — Ephrat Livni, Quartz, 26 Mar. 2020
  • Ryan Keith Cox was an account clerk who had worked in the public utilities department for more than 12 years.
    — Lauren M. Johnson, CNN, 22 Aug. 2019
  • Siegele acknowledged the price tag but said the city can acquire the infrastructure through a bond that can be paid off by the public utility over a number of years.
    — Rob Nikolewski, San Diego Union-Tribune, 25 Sep. 2020
  • Once a court declares Google a public utility, the marketplace itself would provide the guard rails.
    — Dave Yost, Star Tribune, 8 July 2021
  • Like Google, it should not only be broken up; its core service should be replaced with some kind of free public utility in the near future.
    — Matthew Walther, TheWeek, 14 Dec. 2020
  • Musk tends to make things that either are useless or have existed as public utilities for decades.
    — Alex Shephard, The New Republic, 3 Feb. 2020
  • The first issue in this debate is whether Facebook should be considered a public utility at all.
    — Os Keyes, Wired, 11 Jan. 2022
  • This, of course, responds to the economic rebound in tandem with some of the worst moments of the Covid-19 lockdown, but also sits in the context of price controls and public utility freezes.
    — Agustino Fontevecchia, Forbes, 28 Oct. 2021
  • There are no public utilities, and no reliable sources of food or drinking water.
    — Kirk Semple, New York Times, 6 Sep. 2019
  • In fact, common carriage is not a more general species of public utility.
    — Gilad Edelman, Wired, 15 July 2021
  • Cox, 50, had been an account clerk in Virginia Beach’s public utilities department for 12 years.
    — USA TODAY, 28 Jan. 2020
  • Others argue for treating Facebook as a public utility but disagree on what that might mean.
    — Os Keyes, Wired, 11 Jan. 2022
  • Such a plan would still need to be facilitated by a public utility, so Budish moved to create one at the county-level.
    — Courtney Astolfi, cleveland, 13 July 2021
  • San Francisco’s public utility owns a power supply system that is then sold to its customers, but the power lines are owned and maintained by PG&E.
    — Nathan Solis, Los Angeles Times, 20 Oct. 2022
  • In the days before television, gambling was ubiquitous, and the mob provided a kind of public utility.
    — Russell Shorto, Time, 17 Mar. 2021
  • Friendswood also was awarded a $2.76 million grant, part of which will be used to relocate three public utility lines that follow a pipe rack bridge across Clear Creek and demolish a bridge.
    — Carissa Lamkahouan, Houston Chronicle, 6 Oct. 2020
  • Residents had to pay to get the public utility to install new equipment for electricity to be restored.
    — New York Times, 15 July 2021
  • The public utility has not provided an update on those outages.
    — Evan MacDonald, cleveland, 17 Oct. 2019
  • The regulators agreed that the arrangement did not make Northwind a public utility.
    — Karl Ebert, Journal Sentinel, 2 Dec. 2022
  • Yesterday’s blackouts set off a cascade of business closures and public rants against PG&E, the state’s largest public utility.
    — Thomas Frank, Scientific American, 10 Oct. 2019
  • The water disconnection threat is the latest development in a year-long saga that has plagued the city, state and public utility company.
    — The Indianapolis Star, 20 July 2022
  • Property owners will be required to replace sidewalks that are not in compliance with code if the issue is not caused by a public utility or tree lawn tree.
    — Linda Gandee, cleveland, 26 July 2021

Some of 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.

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