A utensil is a tool you use with your hands to do a household job — most often a job in the kitchen. Spoons, knives, forks, ladles, spatulas, whisks, peelers, tongs: all utensils. It is a countable noun, so one utensil, three utensils.

The word is slightly formal. In everyday speech people say 'kitchen things', 'cooking tools', or just name the object: 'pass me a spoon'. 'Utensil' shows up on packaging, in recipes, in shop signs, in restaurant rules, and in writing that needs one word to cover a whole drawerful of different objects. If a recipe says 'wash all utensils in hot water', it saves listing every item.

The usual line drawn is between utensils and appliances. A utensil is simple and hand-powered; an appliance plugs in. So a wooden spoon is a utensil and a blender is an appliance. A pot or a frying pan sits on the edge — some people count cookware as utensils, some keep the words apart.

Though actually, in American English 'utensils' on its own very often means the things you eat with: knife, fork, spoon. A takeaway shop asking 'Do you need utensils?' means cutlery, not a whisk. British speakers would say 'cutlery' there, and this is a genuine difference worth remembering. The word is not strictly limited to the kitchen either — you can meet 'writing utensils' for pens and pencils, and 'garden utensils', though these are less common.