• profit •
Pronunciation: prah-fit • Hear it!
Part of Speech: Noun, verb
Meaning: 1. The money left over from sales after paying all the business costs. 2. An advantage you gain from any undertaking, gain, benefit.
Notes: Gross profit is revenue minus the cost of producing the goods sold (COGS); net profit is gross profits minus all additional administrative costs, like taxes, interest on loans, etc. Today's word comes with a popular adjective, profitable, and an unpopular one, profitful. The verb comes with a noun, profiteer "someone who sells for an unreasonable profit".
In Play: The original sense of this word referred only to finance: "Hooker Crook squandered all the profits from his business and went bankrupt." Here is a sentence that works with both senses of today's word: "How do hurricanes profit anyone but profiteers to whom hurricanes mean huge profits?"
Word History: Today's Good Word was another one that English snatched from Old French, this time profit, revised from Latin profectus "progressed, succeeded, profited". This word comprises pro "before, in front of" + fic-, the combining form of facere "to make, build, produce". Pro is a metathesized version of PIE per/por "forward, before, in front of", also the source of Greek pro "before, forth", Russian pro "about" and pro- "through", German vor "before", English for and fore. Facere comes from PIE due-/dho- "to set, put", found also in Sanskrit dadhati "puts, places", Lithuanian dėti "to lay, place", Russian det' "to put, place" and delat' "do, make", German tun "to do" and English do and deed. (Now a word of thanks to Tomasz Kowaltowski, who suggested today's always topical Good Word last year.)
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