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profit

NOUN · English

Experimental / limited support

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Experimental coverage — measured below Partial on the number of recorded words, definitions, translations, word forms and pronunciation. Treat entries as evidence to check; meanings may be incomplete.

English is Experimental in Words. Support is measured, not declared: a language reaches Partial only when every measure meets its threshold, and a measure that has not been taken does not count. The development corpus holds 60 source-backed words in English. What is shown may be incomplete, and pronunciation audio, generated forms and generated examples are not offered.

  1. Definition: Total income or cash flow minus expenditures. The money or other benefit a non-governmental organization or individual receives in exchange for products and services sold at an advertised price.

    countable · uncountable

    No translation has been attempted for this sense.

    • Let no man anticipate uncertain profits. Usage example — not an attested quotation. 1750 Oct. 2, Samuel Johnson, The Rambler
    • War is a racket. It always has been. It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. It is the only one international in scope. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives... Of course, it isn't put that crudely in war time. It is dressed into speeches about patriotism, love of country, and "we must all put our shoulders to the wheel," but the profits jump and leap and skyrocket—and are safely pocketed. 1935, Smedley Butler, War Is a Racket, page 1 & 7:
    • The ability to shift profits to low-tax countries by locating intellectual property in them, which is then licensed to related businesses in high-tax countries, is often assumed to be the preserve of high-tech companies. […] current tax rules make it easy for all sorts of firms to generate […] “stateless income”: profit subject to tax in a jurisdiction that is neither the location of the factors of production that generate the income nor where the parent firm is domiciled. 2013 June 22, “T time”, in The Economist, volume 407, number 8841, archived from the original on 27 Oct 2020, page 68:
    • After the pandemic, MLG lost a lot of its viewership and profits which led it to close. The MLG Twitter account is no longer active and the mlg.com website directs to Battlenet instead of its old website. 2023 October 13, Daniel Appleford, “Fans support MLG being brought back under Microsoft acquisition”, in Dexerto:
  2. Definition: Benefit, positive result obtained.

    countable · dated · literary · uncountable

    No translation has been attempted for this sense.

    • Reading such an enlightening book on the subject was of much profit to his studies. Usage example — not an attested quotation.
    • This I speak for your own profit. 1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, 1 Corinthians vii:35:
    • if you dare do yourself a profit and a right c. 1603–1604 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Othello, the Moore of Venice”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act IV, scene ii]:
  3. Definition: Ellipsis of profit à prendre.

    abbreviation · alt-of · countable · ellipsis · uncountable

    No translation has been attempted for this sense.

    No example is recorded for this sense.

No paradigm has been compiled for this word yet.

Etymology: From Middle English profit, from Old French profit (Modern French profit), from Latin prōfectus (“advance, progress, growth, increase, profit”), from proficiō (“to go forward, advance, make progress, be profitable or useful”). Doublet of profect.

No related word is recorded for this word.