Definition of public good in English:

noun

• 1Economics
  A commodity or service that is provided without profit to all members of a society, either by the government or a private individual or organization.

  ‘a conviction that library informational services are a public good, not a commercial commodity’

  More example sentences

  • ‘The responsibility of corporate executives, politicians, and officials for ensuring that private and public goods and services are safe is practically never enforced in court.’
  • ‘They are also protesting the commodification of public goods and services, like water, electricity and garbage collection.’
  • ‘We understand our roles in providing public goods and services and stabilising the economy when the private sector is in crisis.’
  • ‘This is all the more important in an era when private companies are gaining ever greater control over essential public goods and services.’
  • ‘Economists call arrangements of this kind public goods because, unlike private goods, the benefits are not limited to the producer or a single user.’

• 2The benefit or well-being of the public.

  ‘the public good clearly demands independent action’

  More example sentences

  • ‘If they are able to easily calculate how their choices benefit the public good, they most often make choices that do so.’
  • ‘However, sometimes the only benefit is to the public good, and even that is no small thing.’
  • ‘With silence, charity will fail both itself and the broader public good.’
  • ‘The goal of both the church and the state is to advance the public good.’
  • ‘We end the nightmare when we challenge the threat of corporate control and when we redefine globalization in our own way - for the public good.’