profit

From Middle English profit, from Old French profit (French: profit), from Latin profectus (“advance, progress, growth, increase, profit”), from proficere (“to go forward, advance, make progress, be profitable or useful”); see proficient.

• (Received Pronunciation) enPR: prŏfʹit, IPA^(key): /ˈpɹɒfɪt/
• (General American) enPR: prŏfʹit, IPA^(key): /ˈpɹɑfɪt/

• Audio (US)

  (file)

• Homophone: prophet
• Rhymes: -ɒfɪt
• Hyphenation: prof‧it

profit (countable and uncountable, plural profits)

1. (accounting, economics) 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.
   • Rambler

     Let no man anticipate uncertain profits.

   • 2013 June 22, “T time”, in The Economist, volume 407, number 8841, page 68:

     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.

2. (dated, literary) Benefit, positive result obtained.

   Reading such an enlightening book on the subject was of much profit to his studies.

   • Bible, 1 Corinthians vii. 35

     This I speak for your own profit.

   • Shakespeare

     if you dare do yourself a profit and a right

3. (law) In property law, a nonpossessory interest in land whereby a party is entitled to enter the land of another for the purpose of taking the soil or the substance of the soil (coal, oil, minerals, and in some jurisdictions timber and game).

Regarding the income sense, when the difference is negative the term loss is correct. Negative profit does appear in microeconomics. Profit by a government agency is called a surplus.

• gain

• loss

• for-profit
• non-profit

profit (third-person singular simple present profits, present participle profiting, simple past and past participle profited)

1. (transitive) To benefit (somebody), be of use to (somebody).
   • Bible, Hebrews iv. 2

     The word preached did not profit them.

   • Dryden

     It is a great means of profiting yourself, to copy diligently excellent pieces and beautiful designs.

2. (intransitive, construed with from) To benefit, gain.
3. (intransitive, construed with from) To take advantage of, exploit, use.

• proficiency
• proficient

• profit in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.
• profit in The Century Dictionary, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911.

• forpit

From Latin prōfectus.

• (Balearic, Central) IPA^(key): /pɾuˈfit/
• (Valencian) IPA^(key): /pɾoˈfit/

profit m (plural profits)

1. benefit, advantage

• aprofitar
• bon profit
• profitós

• “profit” in Diccionari de la llengua catalana, segona edició, Institut d’Estudis Catalans.
• “profit” in Gran Diccionari de la Llengua Catalana, Grup Enciclopèdia Catalana.
• “profit” in Diccionari normatiu valencià, Acadèmia Valenciana de la Llengua.
• “profit” in Diccionari català-valencià-balear, Antoni Maria Alcover and Francesc de Borja Moll, 1962.

From Old French, from Latin prōfectus.

• IPA^(key): /pʁɔ.fi/

• audio

  (file)

profit m (plural profits)

1. profit, benefit

   Il a su tirer profit de ses connaissances.

   He managed to take advantage of his knowledge.

• “profit” in le Trésor de la langue française informatisé (The Digitized Treasury of the French Language).

Borrowed from German Profit.[1]

• IPA^(key): [ˈprofit]
• Hyphenation: pro‧fit

profit (plural profitok)

1. profit (total income or cash flow minus expenditures)

• haszon
• nyereség

From Old French profit, from Latin profectus (“advance, progress, growth, increase, profit”).

profit m (plural profits)

1. (Jersey) profit

• IPA^(key): /prǒfiːt/
• Hyphenation: pro‧fit

pròfīt m (Cyrillic spelling про̀фӣт)

1. profit

From English profit.

profit

1. profit
2. interest