Online dictionaryOnline dictionary
Synonyms, antonyms, pronunciation

  Home
English Dictionary      examples: 'day', 'get rid of', 'New York Bay'




Profit   Listen
verb
Profit  v. i.  
1.
To gain advantage; to make improvement; to improve; to gain; to advance. "I profit not by thy talk."
2.
To be of use or advantage; to do or bring good. "Riches profit not in the day of wrath."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








Advanced search
     Find words:
Starting with
Ending with
Containing
Matching a pattern  

Synonyms
Antonyms
Quotes
Words linked to  

only single words



Share |
Add this dictionary
to your browser search bar





"Profit" Quotes from Famous Books



... shouts and sounds of strife. For there was confusion up there on the dark decks, and the captain had forgotten his caution and withdrawn his ambush. I knew that Boston and Blackie would not overlook this chance; promise or no promise they would profit by this occasion. ...
— The Blood Ship • Norman Springer

... by various pleasures, so that in describing any passions whatsoever, which are voluntarily described, the mind will, upon the whole, be in a state of enjoyment. If Nature be thus cautious to preserve in a state of enjoyment a being so employed, the Poet ought to profit by the lesson held forth to him, and ought especially to take care, that, whatever passions he communicates to his Reader, those passions, if his Reader's mind be sound and vigorous, should always be accompanied with an overbalance of pleasure. Now the music of harmonious ...
— English Critical Essays - Nineteenth Century • Various

... usual grin, "it ain't mooch profit Oi'll git oot ov it, me darlint, or yersilf ayther, fur thet matther— aboot ez mooch, faith, ez Pat O'Connor got whin he ...
— Young Tom Bowling - The Boys of the British Navy • J.C. Hutcheson

... musical instruments, and that of all sorts. And whatsoever my eyes desired I kept not from them, I withheld not my heart from any joy. And behold, all was vanity and vexation of spirit, and there was no profit under the sun.' ...
— Montezuma's Daughter • H. Rider Haggard

... down. The original English company spent nearly one million sterling on it, without getting any dividend. They sold it to two or three Mexicans for about twenty-seven thousand pounds, and the Mexicans spent eighty thousand more on it, and then began to make profits. The annual profit is now some L200,000. ...
— Anahuac • Edward Burnett Tylor

... surprise and got by with it. But this time he was in wrong; I'd been dumped by him so often that I was cagy. I'd looked over the game he'd handed me—give it a good, careful look, mind you, and I found there was about twenty per cent. profit and eighty per cent danger. He was to cut the twenty with me, but I was to take ...
— Ashton-Kirk, Criminologist • John T. McIntyre

... liberally distributed amongst the tenants, and dispos'd of about the hedg-rows, and other waste, and uncultivated places, for timber, shelter, fuel, and ornament, to an incredible advantage. This being a cheap, and laudable work, of so much pleasure in the execution, and so certain a profit in the event; to be but once well done (for, as I affirm'd, a very small plantarium or nursery will in a few years people a vast extent of ground) hath made me sometimes in admiration at the universal negligence, as well ...
— Sylva, Vol. 1 (of 2) - Or A Discourse of Forest Trees • John Evelyn

... and after a long survey, those of others approximate to mine. Nor does this my sentiment spring from a love of power, as in many good men quite unconsciously, when they would make proselytes, since I shall see few and converse with fewer of them, and profit in no way by their adherence and favour; but it springs from a natural and a cultivated love of all truths whatever, and from a certainty that these delivered by me are conducive to the happiness and dignity of man. ...
— Imaginary Conversations and Poems - A Selection • Walter Savage Landor

... that the modern teacher is more occupied in teaching the pupil than the subject. The old method of grinding in scales, scales, and yet more scales until those scales had become second nature is recognised as being worse than merely futile. What can it profit a pupil if he gain the whole world of scales and lose his artistic soul? So also with other points, the centre of attention is transferred from the subject to the pupil. Furthermore, the wise teacher recognises that as music is a part of life, so the understanding ...
— Spirit and Music • H. Ernest Hunt

... would be ineligible for any office of honor or profit. The Senate would never dare confirm him; the President would not think of nominating him. He would be on trial in all the yellow journals for belonging to the Invisible Government, the Hell Hounds of Plutocracy, the Money Power, the Interests. The ...
— Damn! - A Book of Calumny • Henry Louis Mencken

... in the form of a couchant lion. If it was a real lion it would hardly be less arresting merely because it was near; nor could the first emotion of the traveller be adequately described as disappointment. In such cases there is generally some profit in looking at the monument a second time, or even at our own sensations a second time. So I reasoned, striving with wild critics in the wilderness; but the only part of the debate which is relevant here can be expressed in the statement that I do think the Pyramid big, for the deep and simple ...
— The New Jerusalem • G. K. Chesterton

... discontinue writing about myself. But in these private pages I may note the substance of what my good friend said to me. If I only look back often enough at this little record, I may gather the resolution to profit by her advice. In ...
— The Black Robe • Wilkie Collins

... Nevertheless, it may furnish a sufficiently palatable drink for home consumption, and may therefore be so utilized. But when, as happens from time to time in fruit-growing districts, there is a glut, and even the best table fruit is not saleable at a profit, then, indeed, cider-making is a means of storing in a liquid form what would otherwise be left to rot on the ground; whilst if a proportion of vintage fruit were mixed therewith, a drink would be produced which would not discredit the cider trade, and would bring a fair return to ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 3 - "Chitral" to "Cincinnati" • Various

... sells for one 'skin,' or fifty cents. These people, Huskies and all, know the value of matches, and they jolly well have to pay for them. I've been figuring, and I find out that the traders make about five thousand per cent. profit on the matches they sell in the northern country. Everything ...
— Young Alaskans in the Far North • Emerson Hough

... An Indian, perhaps, will not let his favorite wife, but he looks upon his others, his sisters, daughters, female relatives, and slaves, as a legitimate source of profit.... Cohabitation of unmarried females among their own people brings no disgrace if unaccompanied with child-birth, which they take care to prevent. This commences at a very early age, perhaps ten or ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck

... of money expended in the enterprise before the point of profit was reached was very great; it aggregated many millions of dollars; but the promoters had faith in the success of the machine and taxed themselves ungrudgingly. Among those who contributed largely to the ultimate ...
— The Building of a Book • Various

... destroyed his best crops just when they seemed to promise most; farm stock had to be reduced. The good years were few, the bad years were many. The great strain of carrying a large outfit of expensive agricultural machinery which on a small farm could be used with profit only from ten to forty days in the year, began to be felt. The debts, incurred by the purchase of the machinery, were growing steadily larger. With each renewal of the mortgage on the farm, came the demand for a bonus and a higher rate of interest. Meanwhile the price of land and of all farm ...
— Solaris Farm - A Story of the Twentieth Century • Milan C. Edson

... answered Dr. Magnus. "In fact, we rather discourage victims of sentimental reverses, it being invariably impossible to determine whether the transaction is finally to show a profit or a loss. Then, too, the quick recoveries—but we'll let it stand at that. ...
— The Gates of Chance • Van Tassel Sutphen

... gladly I the riches Of my wisdom would be preaching, That in joy as well as sorrow Cats might profit from ...
— The Trumpeter of Saekkingen - A Song from the Upper Rhine. • Joseph Victor von Scheffel

... whether he is elected, and whether the grace spoken of in the Gospel is intended for or belongs to him. "Therefore," says the Formula of Concord, "if we wish to consider our eternal election to salvation with profit, we must in every way hold sturdily and firmly to this, that, as the preaching of repentance, so also the promise of the Gospel is universalis (universal), that is, it pertains to all men, Luke 24, ...
— Historical Introductions to the Symbolical Books of the Evangelical Lutheran Church • Friedrich Bente

... endeavor of man of rendering himself more pleasing in the sight of God by the acquisition of solid Christian virtues, in order thus to reach his last end—his eternal happiness. It is for this reason that our Saviour tells us: "What doth it profit a man if he gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? For what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?"—(Matt. xvi. 26.) It is, then, the supernatural culture, or the perfection of the soul, that is to be ...
— Public School Education • Michael Mueller

... be told, we teach the ten commandments, where a world of morals lies condensed, the very pith and epitome of all ethics and religion; and a young man with these precepts engraved upon his mind must follow after profit with some conscience and Christianity of method. A man cannot go very far astray who neither dishonours his parents, nor kills, nor commits adultery, nor steals, nor bears false witness; for these things, rightly thought out, cover a vast ...
— Lay Morals • Robert Louis Stevenson

... pronouncements and fail to realise that our generation acts not unnaturally in passing by the open doors of the Churches; that the clergy are, as usual, shirking the most serious questions of the modern intelligence, and trusting mainly to profit by the heated and disordered and confusing ...
— The War and the Churches • Joseph McCabe

... last 'natural' had been declared, and the profit and loss account of fish and sixpences adjusted, to the satisfaction of all parties, Mr. Bob Sawyer rang for supper, and the visitors squeezed themselves into corners while ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens

... which the world was put together, separated by so distinct bounds. That was proved not only by reason but also by experience, which had discovered and proved how difficult and even impossible was the conservation of those islands, unless the cost were very greatly in excess of the profit—although, in this matter, one should first decide whether [questions of] honor and ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 (Vol 27 of 55) • Various

... be prepared sometimes to make sacrifices of profit for the sake of the Art, should the interests of the ...
— Stained Glass Work - A text-book for students and workers in glass • C. W. Whall

... submitting to my readers, in support of these convictions, a certain number of digests of my memoranda, setting forth what I saw, heard, and learned in some of the departments which I visited with most pleasure and profit. ...
— France and the Republic - A Record of Things Seen and Learned in the French Provinces - During the 'Centennial' Year 1889 • William Henry Hurlbert

... He could guess how the story would be told. "We'll say no more about it, if you please. The young man is sorry. I forgive him. His offense was inadvertent even though vexatious. If he will profit by this experience I will gladly suffer the ...
— The Fighting Edge • William MacLeod Raine

... a pity that a bargain could not be struck by France and Germany, the Emperor William receiving Lourdes in exchange for Metz or Strasburg! Lourdes must represent a princely revenue, far in excess, I should say, of any profit the Prussian Government will ever make out of the annexed provinces; and as nobody lives there, and visitors only remain a day or two, it would not matter to the most patriotic French pilgrim going to whom the ...
— In the Heart of the Vosges - And Other Sketches by a "Devious Traveller" • Matilda Betham-Edwards

... people, and, even when it took the shape of slum-rents, its odour was not displeasing; but it was not a subject for conversation. People did not chatter about their neighbours' incomes; and, if they made their own money in trades or professions, they did not regale us with statistics of profit and loss. To-day everyone seems to be, if I may use the favourite colloquialism, "on the make"; and the devotion with which people worship money pervades their whole conversation, and colours their whole view of life. "Scions of Aristocracy," to use the good old phrase of Pennialinus, ...
— Fifteen Chapters of Autobiography • George William Erskine Russell

... answered Mr. Burns, "and you ought to have followed my trade; I could make a good jeweller of you. This ring is worth two hundred guineas, fair market-value. But as I can ask for no one more than it is absolutely worth, I must take my profit off you: do you think that ...
— Warlock o' Glenwarlock • George MacDonald

... friend," said Hardy, "that our good Jonathan is really the most wicked of us all? I go upon the sea on these cruises, which you call smuggling, and what not, and of which he speaks censoriously, but if they do not show a large enough profit on his books he rates me most severely, and charges me with a lack of enterprise. And now he would fain go to the play to see that we observe the proper decorum there. My lads, you couldn't keep the sour-visaged ...
— The Shadow of the North - A Story of Old New York and a Lost Campaign • Joseph A. Altsheler

... conspirators, and rebels, and traitors, whose sole office and labor is to mend these degenerate morals, to heal these corrupting sores, to pour a better life into the rotting carcass of this guilty city? Is it for our pastime, or our profit, that we go about this always dangerous work? Is it a pleasure to hear the gibes, jests, and jeers of the streets and the places of public resort? Will you not believe that it is for some great end that we do and bear as thou seest—even the ...
— Aurelian - or, Rome in the Third Century • William Ware

... this time, within an hour of noon, and although a dense vapour still enveloped the city they had left, as if the very breath of its busy people hung over their schemes of gain and profit, and found greater attraction there than in the quiet region above, in the open country it was clear and fair. Occasionally, in some low spots they came upon patches of mist which the sun had not yet driven from their strongholds; but these were soon passed, and as they laboured up the hills ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens

... nobleman, selfish and wicked as now seems the fashion to describe him, force the peasant of Samogitia to servile work, when the latter had an opportunity of drawing a good profit from the results of his labor in the neighboring marts of Memel, Liban, Riga, Mittau, Venden, etc.? No, must we answer to our readers. There might have been seen a boor's wife dressed in sky blue lined with fox fur, and drawn to church in a comfortable kolaska, by ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 2, August, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... made-up Madonna—a stuffed and painted image, like a milliner's dummy—whose hair miraculously grew and restored itself every twelve months. They still kept up this shaving procession as late as four or five years ago. It was a source of great profit to the church that possessed the remarkable effigy, and the ceremony of the public barbering of her was always carried out with the greatest possible eclat and display—the more the better, because the more excitement there was about it the larger the crowds it drew and the heavier the revenues ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... choose the one book out of all that line from which I have had most pleasure and most profit, I should point to yonder stained copy of Macaulay's "Essays." It seems entwined into my whole life as I look backwards. It was my comrade in my student days, it has been with me on the sweltering Gold Coast, and it formed part of my humble kit when I went a-whaling ...
— Through the Magic Door • Arthur Conan Doyle

... thousand cares he will find an hour to recur to his boyish lessons—to reperuse them in the pleasurable consciousness of old associations, and in the clearness of manly judgment, and to apply them to himself and to the world with superior profit. ...
— The Glory of English Prose - Letters to My Grandson • Stephen Coleridge

... run-out farms in New England. You could pour money into the soil out of a gold pitcher these five years to come, before it began to pay you back. And then your money might better have been put anywhere in bank, for profit! I saw that, the first week here. Since then I've been looking around ...
— The Thing from the Lake • Eleanor M. Ingram

... event was at least possible—his next experiment in the art of raising a loan might take him to Paris. Lord Harry had already ventured on a speculation which called for an immediate outlay of money, and which was only expected to put a profit into his pocket at some future period. In the meanwhile, his resources in money had their limits; and his current expenses would make imperative demands on an ill-filled purse. If the temptation to fail in his resolution to respect his wife's fortune was already trying his ...
— Blind Love • Wilkie Collins

... still and trust! For his strokes are strokes of love, Thou must for thy profit bear; He thy filial fear would move, Trust thy Father's loving ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 3 - Sorrow and Consolation • Various

... represented by large tracts of land, where he generously experimented for the benefit of the country. As with several rich South Africans, he had his stud farm and his agricultural farm; and both were kept up to a very high standard, without any particular consideration for profit and loss. But his house in the Sachsenwald neighbourhood had more of charm and comfort in it than display. The rooms were very high and airy and well ventilated, with artistic colour effects which the ...
— The Rhodesian • Gertrude Page

... usually awaits in this world the strong purpose of a determined spirit. Lady Annabel herself was far too acute a person not to have detected early in life the talents of her child, and she was proud of them. She had cultivated them with exemplary devotion and with admirable profit. But Lady Annabel had not less discovered that, in the ardent and susceptible temperament of Venetia, means were offered by which the heart might be trained not only to cope with but overpower the intellect. With great powers of pleasing, beauty, accomplishments, ...
— Venetia • Benjamin Disraeli

... breaking its irons and fighting to death in order to recover its rights and liberty?—No—the French people had at last the government of their choice,—the Republic. There was, then, question of an impious war, undertaken by a blind multitude for the profit of a few hidden ambitions: that is to say, a war without grandeur and without interest for a ...
— The Insurrection in Paris • An Englishman: Davy

... infancy or not, may all join together in these songs. And as I have endeavoured to sink the language to the level of a child's understanding, and yet to keep it (if possible) above contempt; so I have designed to profit all (if possible) and offend none. I hope the more general the sense is, these composures may be of the ...
— Divine Songs • Isaac Watts

... thank the Lord for His unspeakable mercy to the children of men. I couldn't have stood that man much longer, and that's the gospel truth. He ate like a pig, so there wasn't a mite of profit in it. And he was as fussy as any old maid I ever saw. If I have to choose between an old maid and an old batch for a boarder, give me the old maid every time. She don't begin to eat so much, and she takes care of her room. Albion Bennet about ruined my spare chamber. He et peanuts ...
— The Shoulders of Atlas - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman

... society, whether by separate legislation in different countries or by international agreement. No living person should seek to dwell in thought for one moment on such a disaster except in the endeavour to glean from it knowledge that will be of profit to the whole world in the future. When such knowledge is practically applied in the construction, equipment, and navigation of passenger steamers—and not until then—will be the time to cease to think of the Titanic disaster and of the hundreds of men and women ...
— The Loss of the SS. Titanic • Lawrence Beesley

... there engage in the cultivation of commodities—such as silk, currants, raisins, wax, almonds, olives, and oil—which, being raised neither in England nor in any English plantation, would serve to redress the balance of trade and doubtless net a handsome profit to those with faith to venture the first costs of settlement. With the English market assured, a thriving trade and a prosperous colony seemed the ...
— Beginnings of the American People • Carl Lotus Becker

... productions to the managers of theatres, retaining no title or interest in them. However the poet of the Shakespearean plays may have anticipated the verdict of posterity, the plays bear most abundant evidence that they were written to be acted, to entertain and please, and to bring patrons and profit to the theatres which were in the London of ...
— Testimony of the Sonnets as to the Authorship of the Shakespearean Plays and Poems • Jesse Johnson

... prophet would mean this,' in his expositions of Scripture, remarked, on hearing that he had assumed the bishopric, 'For als aft as it was repeated by Mr. Patrick, "the prophet would mean this," I understood never what the profit means until now.' But to Adamson, who 'had his reward,' the titular primacy of Scotland was of more consequence than the respect of his countrymen: he retained his place in defiance of the Church, and was for many a day a ...
— Andrew Melville - Famous Scots Series • William Morison

... that under such laws the improvement of agriculture in Greece is impossible. No green crops can be grown with profit at any distance from a large town. The tenth of garden produce and green crops being generally valued and paid for in money, the disputes concerning the valuation, and the impossibility of obtaining any redress, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 55, No. 344, June, 1844 • Various

... "But think of the profit to him!" protested the president. "He paid only twenty cents for his half of the Alicia; he told me so himself. At two hundred he'd clear ninety thousand; a magnificent amount ...
— Empire Builders • Francis Lynde

... Madame). M. Leprince was a Parisian auctioneer towards the end of the Empire and at the beginning of the Restoration. He finally sold his business at a great profit; but being injured by one of Nucingen's failures, he lost in some speculations on the Bourse some of the profits that he had realized. He was the father-in-law of Xavier Rabourdin, whose fortune he risked in these dangerous speculations, that his son-in-law's domestic comfort ...
— Repertory Of The Comedie Humaine, Complete, A — Z • Anatole Cerfberr and Jules Franois Christophe

... say you could not go amiss for your profit and pleasure in Seville, but there are certain imperative objects of interest like the Casa de Pilatos which you really have to do. Strangely enough, it is very well worth doing, for, though it is even more factitiously Moorish than the Alcazar, ...
— Familiar Spanish Travels • W. D. Howells

... sometimes a yoke of oxen to boot. Such very desirable things to a new community as sheeting, or spades and shovels, since the miners were overstocked, could be had for almost nothing. Indeed, everything, except coffee and sugar, was about half the wholesale rate in the East. The profit to the Mormons from this migration was even greater in 1850. The gold-seeker sometimes paid as high as a dollar a pound for flour; and, conversely, as many of the wayfarers started out with heavy loads of mining machinery and miscellaneous ...
— The Forty-Niners - A Chronicle of the California Trail and El Dorado • Stewart Edward White

... butter-and-egg acquaintance, one of the wealthy farmers in that prosperous farming community. For his family's sake he had moved into town, a ruddy, rufous-bearded, clumping fellow, intelligent, kindly. They had sold the farm with a fine profit and had taken a boxlike house on Franklin Street. He had nothing to do but enjoy himself. You saw him out on the porch early, very early ...
— O Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1919 • Various

... one of our Schedules for awhile," until the great life-Agent should come in, the Gospeler read a few schedulistic pages, proving, that if a person had his life Insured at the age of Thirty, and paid his premiums regularly until he was Eighty-five, the cost to him and profit to the Company would, probably, be much more than the amount he had insured for. It must, then, be evident to him, that, upon his death, at Ninety, the Company would have received, in all, sufficient funds from him to pay the full amount of his Policy to the lady whom he had always introduced ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 24, September 10, 1870 • Various

... Dey, laughing, "thou hast studied the lady to small profit if thou dost believe her capable of acting the part of a spy on ...
— The Pirate City - An Algerine Tale • R.M. Ballantyne

... mercilessly collected without regard to lowness of price. All supplies from abroad also had to be purchased in England, at prices set by English sellers. Even if from other parts of Europe, they must come through England, thus securing her a profit ...
— History of the United States, Vol. I (of VI) • E. Benjamin Andrews

... was nothing in his past to justify her confidence in his future. Women worth having did not marry forlorn hopes in the expectation of making a profit out of them by and by. He had no hearth to offer her; he had no thatch; he had not a rood of land to lead a mountain stream across and set with the emerald and royal purple of alfalfa; not a foot of greensward beside the river, where a yeaning ewe might lie and ease the burden ...
— Claim Number One • George W. (George Washington) Ogden

... letter of the 8th of this month, and the packets which accompanied it. I have not now time to reply to it, as I profit by an express on the point of departure, and ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. XI • Various

... to save their species from degeneracy by close inbreeding through fertilization with their own pollen, alone prove the operation of Mind through them. How plants travel, how they send seeds abroad in the world to found new colonies, might be studied with profit by Anglo-Saxon expansionists. Do vice and virtue exist side by side in the vegetable world also? Yes, and every sinner is branded as surely as was Cain. The dodder, Indian pipe, broomrape and beech-drops wear the floral equivalent of the striped suit and the shaved head. Although claiming ...
— Wild Flowers, An Aid to Knowledge of Our Wild Flowers and - Their Insect Visitors - - Title: Nature's Garden • Neltje Blanchan

... inheritable variations ever arise in any way advantageous to any being under its excessively complex and changing relations of life; and it would be a strange fact if beneficial variations did never arise, seeing how many have arisen which man has taken advantage of for his own profit or pleasure; if then these contingencies ever occur, and I do not see how the probability of their occurrence can be doubted, then the severe and often-recurrent struggle for existence will determine that ...
— The Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication, Vol. I. • Charles Darwin

... useful. [Footnote: We may add, that at the session for the general encouragement of national industry, a medal was ordered to be presented to M. Crespel, a manufacturer of arrus, who manufactures every year one hundred and fifty thousand pounds of beet sugar, which he sells at a profit, even—when Colonial sugar is 2 francs 50 centimes the kilogramme. The reason is, that the refuse is used for distillation, and ...
— The Physiology of Taste • Brillat Savarin

... himself beside the fire, just near enough to profit by the light, but far enough away to obtain a general view of everything and everybody, proceeded with enthusiasm to sketch the whole affair, collectively and in detail. He devoted his chief attention, however, to Big Waller. He "caught" that gigantic ...
— The Wild Man of the West - A Tale of the Rocky Mountains • R.M. Ballantyne

... and herds multiplied marvelously. He was in fact regarded as "rich" in those days of simplicity. He had sent several flatboats loaded with grain down the Ohio and Mississippi to New Orleans and sold the cargoes at great profit, so that, in addition to his fields, his stock and houses, he had between three and four ...
— Sustained honor - The Age of Liberty Established • John R. Musick,

... vessel laden with Turkey carpets, stuffs of the Levant, and cashmeres. It was necessary to find some neutral ground on which an exchange could be made, and then to try and land these goods on the coast of France. If the venture was successful the profit would be enormous, there would be a gain of fifty or sixty ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... lady professor of embroidery, which Caroline has succeeded in tormenting mamma to let her have—entre nous, it is only because she has taught Annie Grahame; all these, my dear Mary, presented a most formidable array, and for the first month I did not choose to profit by their instructions in the least. I gave full vent to all the dislike I felt to them. I encouraged indolence to a degree that frequently occasioned a reproof from Miss Harcourt. I could not bear their mode of teaching; the attention so many things ...
— The Mother's Recompense, Volume I. - A Sequel to Home Influence in Two Volumes. • Grace Aguilar

... owned many acres of land under which was coal, and he allowed enterprising persons to dig deep for this coal, and often explode themselves to death in the adventure, on the understanding that they paid him sixpence for every ton of coal brought to the surface, whether they made any profit on it or not. This arrangement was called "mining rights," another phrase that apparently ...
— The Regent • E. Arnold Bennett

... interest to the general reader. The Sopori mine is another very valuable property. It is owned by Messrs. Douglass, Aldrich, and another. Want of capital has prevented the extensive development of this mine. It affords its proprietors a handsome profit, worked in the smallest and cheapest manner. The vein is of great size, has been traced several rods in length, and pays about one dollar to the pound of ore. The writer has examined specimens from the "Sopori," taken ...
— Memoir of the Proposed Territory of Arizona • Sylvester Mowry

... last day of the festival, which is held the most sacred, performs a conspicuous character in the tragedy. This was to be acted in public before the prince in the great open square of the city, and I expected to acquire much reputation and profit from the feat of strength which I should perform, which consists of carrying an immense sack full of water on the back, accompanied by additional exertions. I had a rival, who accomplished the task on the last festival; but as the sack I was about to carry contained ...
— The Adventures of Hajji Baba of Ispahan • James Morier

... as great an addition to even a poor man's cottage as his bed of onions or patch of potatoes? What is the scale to measure even mortal happiness? What is the marketable value of friendship or of love? What makes the dinner of herbs sometimes more refreshing than the stalled ox? What is the material profit of a first love? What is the value in tangible dollars and cents of a beautiful landscape, or a speaking picture, or a marble statue, or a living book, or the voice of eloquence, or the charm of earliest bird, or the smile of a friend, or the promise of immortality? In what consisted ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume VI • John Lord

... phraseology. Lines which passed by barren districts, and by waste heaths, the termini of which were in uninhabitable places, reached a high premium. The shares of one company rose 2,400 per cent. Everything was to pay a large dividend; everything was to yield a large profit. One railway was to cross the entire Principality ...
— Gossip in the First Decade of Victoria's Reign • John Ashton

... a new idea from the suggestion of serving the trout as an "extra" in the grill-room of the hotel. All of a sudden he began to scent a profit. ...
— The High School Boys' Fishing Trip • H. Irving Hancock

... (meaning lord or ruler). Seigniorage meant primarily the right the ruler, or the estate, has to charge for coinage, and hence it has come to mean also the charge made for coinage, and often, in a still broader sense, the profit made by the government in issuing any kind of money with a value higher than that of the materials (whether metal or paper) composing it. Coinage is rarely without charge, and often has been a source of ...
— Modern Economic Problems - Economics Vol. II • Frank Albert Fetter

... plans of economy,[53-] and endeavour to make the most of every thing, as well for your own honour as your master's profit, and you will find that whatever care you take for his profit will be for your own: take care that the meat which is to make its appearance again in the parlour is handsomely cut with a sharp knife, and put on a clean dish: take care of the gravy (see No. 326) which is left, it will save many pounds ...
— The Cook's Oracle; and Housekeeper's Manual • William Kitchiner

... thing, whose body was wisdom her soul love, and her efficient cause truth. It is a practice of wisdom from the mere love of it, for so we must interpret his amoroso uso di sapienzia, when we remember how he has said before[103] that "the love of wisdom for its delight or profit is not true love of wisdom." And this love must embrace knowledge in all its branches, for Dante is content with nothing less than a pancratic training, and has a scorn of dilettanti, specialists, and quacks. "Wherefore none ought to be called a ...
— Among My Books • James Russell Lowell

... nights to the cowhouse, but stayed indoors to practise hymns with Katherine. Oh, the terrible rapture of those nightly "practices!" They brought people to the inn to hear them, and so Caesar found them good for profit ...
— The Manxman - A Novel - 1895 • Hall Caine

... have great reverence, I shall certainly not dispute with you thereon. I abhor exultation. If the change produces peace, I shall make a bonfire in my heart. Personal interest I have none; you and I shall certainly never profit by the politics to which we are attached. The "Archaeologic Epistle" I admire exceedingly, though I am sorry it attacks Mr. Bryant,[2] whom I love and respect. The Dean is so absurd an oaf, that he deserves to be ridiculed. ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole - Volume II • Horace Walpole

... took a piece of gold out of his purse and gave it him, though it was but the sixtieth part of the worth of the plate. Aladdin, taking the money very eagerly, retired with so much haste that the Jew, not content with the exorbitancy of his profit, was vexed he had not penetrated into his ignorance, and was going to run after him, to endeavor to get some change out of the piece of gold. But the boy ran so fast, and had got so far, that it would have been ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments • Anonymous

... through and through with scorn and indignation,—"Thou evil Beauty! ... thou fallen Fairness! ... Kill Sah-luma? ... Nay, sooner would I kill myself...or thee! His life is a glory to the world, . . his death shall never profit thee!"... ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli

... asked also to establish prices, but not in order to limit the profits of the farmers, but only to guarantee to them when necessary a minimum price which will insure them a profit where they are asked to attempt new crops and to secure the consumer against extortion by breaking up corners and attempts at speculation, when they occur, by fixing temporarily a reasonable price at ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume VI (of VIII) - History of the European War from Official Sources • Various

... for a faulty and irregular work that is alive to a meticulous but dull one. This is not to be understood as praise of the irregular: the rules of poetry must be established, but they must be founded rationally on the ends of poetry, pleasure and profit, and the psychological process by which they are received, and not solely on the practices and doctrines of the ancients. Taking his cue from the Hobbesian and Lockian methodology of Addison's papers of the pleasures of the imagination without delving into Addison's ...
— A Full Enquiry into the Nature of the Pastoral (1717) • Thomas Purney

... experience and feeling lighten the footsteps wonderfully. So it is that one is encouraged to go on writing as long as the world has anything that interests him, for he never knows how many of his fellow-beings he may please or profit, and in how many places his name will be spoken as that of ...
— The Poet at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

... 13,000; and, as my little guide afterwards told me (although the cunning old clerk took care to avoid it), that each pilgrim paid the priest from 1s. 8d. to 2s. 6d., therefore we may suppose that the profit to the prior of Lough Derg and his ...
— The Station; The Party Fight And Funeral; The Lough Derg Pilgrim • William Carleton

... novelist, born in London; wrote as many as a hundred novels, beginning with "Richelieu" in 1829, which brought him popularity, profit, and honour; ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood

... pledge himself to fatherly guardianship of the pretty child in case of a need that might never arise. So he gave the promise, and became a pupil of Abenali, visiting Warwick Inner Yard with his master's consent whenever he could be spared, while the workmanship at the Dragon began to profit thereby. ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte Mary Yonge

... satisfy him with brute comforts and control him with brute discipline; but teach Jack the alphabet, and he becomes as shrewd as his master. He begins to consider what he is worth, and to readjust the proportion between his work and his wages—to reflect that the larger share of the profit is, perhaps, due to himself, seeing that he reaps by his own toil and sweat, and his master reaps by the toil and sweat of ...
— The Vicissitudes of Bessie Fairfax • Harriet Parr

... going to El Molino the next morning himself and would take me with him. The first thing he did on our arrival at the village was to send me to the principal storekeeper in the place, a man who had faith in the Blanco leader, and was rapidly disposing of a large stock of goods at a splendid profit, receiving in payment sundry slips of paper signed by Santa Coloma. This good fellow, who mixed politics with business, provided me with a complete and much-needed outfit, which included a broadcloth suit of clothes, ...
— The Purple Land • W. H. Hudson

... to exercise it. England has always exercised the right of search; it ill becomes her to oppose it. Let us be honest; rights of this kind are always odious to those who submit to them and always dear to those who profit by them. Alas! this is not the only instance in which, a change in our position works a change in our mode of viewing things. Let us take the human heart as it is, and not demand under penalty of war, that the Americans, in the midst of one of the most terrible ...
— The Uprising of a Great People • Count Agenor de Gasparin

... gloomily. "I did my best yesterday to get the wounded rebels given some soup and wine, or at least beef and biscuit that was n't rotten or full of worms, but 't was not to be done; there 's too much profit in buying the worst ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford

... is foetid, it is sordid, it is squalid; If you tried it for a season, you would very soon repent; But the British trader likes it, and he finds a reason solid For the liking, in his profit at the ...
— Successful Recitations • Various

... a few lines to this name, the desire is simply to arrest the attention of any reader, who may be too closely engaged in temporal things; giving their strength to that which cannot profit, and not sufficiently pondering the passing nature ...
— The Annual Monitor for 1851 • Anonymous

... infinite all fulness of God. This advanceth the soul to a participation of all that is in him. This is health, Psalm xlii. 11. Prov. iii. 8. This is light, John viii. 12. It is life, (John xi. 25,) liberty, (John viii. 36,) food and raiment, (Isa. lxi. 10, and John iv. 14,) and what not? It is profit, pleasure, preferment in the superlative degree, and not scattered in so many various streams which divide and distract the heart, but all combined in one. It is the true good of both soul and body, and so the only good of man. And lastly, it ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning

... the bourgeoisie, who claimed to substitute themselves for the nobles, and were the real authors of the Revolution. The movement started by the middle classes rapidly exceeded their hopes, needs, and aspirations. They had claimed equality for their own profit, but the people also demanded equality. The Revolution thus finally became the popular government which it was not and had no intention of ...
— The Psychology of Revolution • Gustave le Bon

... Mazapevka. Chalk is wanted for white-washing the houses, and locust-beans are a luxury. They are sweet, and they are light in weight, and they are cheap. Schoolboys spend on them all the money they get for breakfast and dinner. And the shopkeepers make a good profit out of them. I could never understand why my mother was always complaining that she could hardly make enough to pay the rent and my school-fees. Why school-fees? What about the other things a human being needs, food and clothes ...
— Jewish Children • Sholem Naumovich Rabinovich

... what I meant. Why didn't you mix 'em up with the other money, an' let 'em go when you was payin' out? Anyways,' I says, 'you charge 'em up to profit an' loss if you're goin' to charge 'em to anythin', an' let ...
— David Harum - A Story of American Life • Edward Noyes Westcott

... Pisa. The tide, which then set westward, and continued its course beyond the Pillars of Hercules, was met in later years by another stream of commerce from the shores of the Baltic.(2) Small wonder, then, if the City of London was quick to profit by the continuous stream of traffic passing and repassing its very door, and vindicated its title to be called—as the Venerable Bede had in very early days called it the ...
— London and the Kingdom - Volume I • Reginald R. Sharpe

... of San Stefano, where England's intrigues deprived us of the price of our victory over the Crescent. I refer, further, to the Crimean War, in which a small English and a large French army defeated us to the profit and advantage of England. That England, and England alone, is again behind this attack upon us by Japan has been dwelt upon by those who have already addressed you. Our enemies do not see themselves called upon to depart in the slightest degree from a policy that has so long stood ...
— The Coming Conquest of England • August Niemann

... mock-love, and this Mock-Hymen were laid up like winter bats, Till all men grew to rate us at our worth, Not vassals to be beat, nor pretty babes To be dandled, no, but living wills, and sphered Whole in ourselves and owed to none. Enough! But now to leaven play with profit, you, Know you no song, the true growth of your soil, That gives the manners ...
— The Princess • Alfred Lord Tennyson

... under the tree, which the Harbola, descending, appropriates. The Basdewas of the northern Districts are now commonly engaged in the trade of buying and selling buffaloes. They take the young male calves from Saugor and Damoh to Chhattisgarh, and there retail them at a profit for rice cultivation, driving them in large herds along the road. For the capital which they have to borrow to make their purchases, they are charged very high rates of interest. The Basdewas have here a ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume II • R. V. Russell

... completing the work war began! I saw them, too, from the top of the hill of Kaya, and turned away my eyes, horror-stricken. Russians, French, Prussians, were there heaped pell-mell, as if God had made them to love each other before the invention of arms and uniforms, which divide them for the profit of those who rule them. There they lay, side by side; and the part of them which could not die knew no more of war, but cursed the crimes that had for centuries kept ...
— The Conscript - A Story of the French war of 1813 • Emile Erckmann

... must go," he said at length. "The bout has done me a world of good. I trust you will profit by the lesson, Lieutenant Stewart," and he handed me back my foil, smiled full into ...
— A Soldier of Virginia • Burton Egbert Stevenson

... poor man grants his child's request, how much more the mighty, good Father in heaven. But be not too anxious for your daily needs: such anxiety spoils pure pleasure. If you heap up material goods, then death comes. Gather not the treasures which pass away; gather spiritual treasures to your inner profit, treasures which your Heavenly Father stores up into life eternal. Such a store will benefit the souls of those who come after you. Man is so fashioned that his heart always inclines to his possessions; if his possessions ...
— I.N.R.I. - A prisoner's Story of the Cross • Peter Rosegger

... kind, and you pay worship to an image of Nimrod. Know ye not that it has a mouth, but it speaks not; an eye, but it sees not; an ear, but it hears not; nor does it walk upon its feet, and there is no profit in it, either ...
— The Legends of the Jews Volume 1 • Louis Ginzberg

... gardener; and many times verbal incentives were made to me,—generally, I fear, in vain,—to get me to lend a hand at digging and planting. Into the hayfields on holidays I was often compelled to go,—not, I fear, with much profit. My father's health was very bad. During the last ten years of his life, he spent nearly the half of his time in bed, suffering agony from sick headaches. But he was never idle unless when suffering. He had at this time commenced a work,—an Encyclopedia Ecclesiastica, as he called it,—on which ...
— Autobiography of Anthony Trollope • Anthony Trollope

... into fierce aggressiveness, unreasonable, alarming. He prowled continually among the camps, sullen and quarrelsome, vaguely miserable, and blaming his misery upon all the world. He took to spending much time, with small profit to himself, among the chained gangs of slaves, where were cruel sounds and crueller sights. At the hiss and cut of the lash on bared backs and thighs he thrilled with savage exultation; he took morbid delight in the sight of pain inflicted; and this he could not at all understand. At this season ...
— Nicanor - Teller of Tales - A Story of Roman Britain • C. Bryson Taylor

... is still a security-a sort of virtual impledgment of the men's wages although they are nominally paid over in cash?-Yes. It may not be by agreement, but the thing practically exists; and I never heard the agents conceal the fact that the profit on the seamen's wages is the main inducement to them in accepting the agency. That very fact, in my opinion, renders the whole transaction irregular and illegal. Of course, that is ...
— Second Shetland Truck System Report • William Guthrie

... of the energy and versatility of our author, but not one of them can be described as lucrative. Nor can his publications have brought him much profit; for, though both Euphues and its sequel passed through ten editions before his death, an author in those days received very little of the proceeds of his work. Moreover the publication of his plays is rather an indication ...
— John Lyly • John Dover Wilson

... strongly calculated to exhibit the degraded state of the people at that period. Some said that she disposed of the children to a certain class of persons in the metropolis, who subsequently sent them to the colonies, when grown, at an enormous profit. Others maintained that she never carried them to Dublin at all, but insisted that, having been herself connected with the fairies, she possessed the power of erasing, by some secret charm, the influence ...
— The Dead Boxer - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton

... private office absolutely alone. He had some serious matters to consider and did not want any interruptions. His balance-sheet for the year had been made up according to the custom of the firm before Christmas instead of on New Year's Day. He examined it again. It showed tremendous profit. The mills were turning out quantities of material, the demand for which was greater and the cost of ...
— And Thus He Came • Cyrus Townsend Brady

... remove her from the scene of her—alas! of her crime? If Philippa had become sane, her position under my roof was extremely compromising. Again, if she were insane, a jury might acquit her, when the snow melted and revealed all that was left of the baronet. But, in that case, what pleasure or profit could I derive from the society of an insane Philippa? Supposing, on the other hand, she was sane, then was I not an 'accessory after the fact,' and liable to all the pains and ...
— Much Darker Days • Andrew Lang (AKA A. Huge Longway)

... landlord. And then the stranger went out to see after his dinner himself. When we started, at the end of an hour, nobody said anything to us. The driver "hitched" on the horses, as they call it, and we started on our way, having been charged nothing for our accommodation. That some profit arose from the horse provender ...
— Volume 1 • Anthony Trollope

... their parents and friends; but one poor little girl had died from fright at being so roughly addressed by Jeffreys. Many thousand pounds had been obtained by the courtiers to whom the slaves had been awarded, while the King had managed to get his share of profit out of the rebellion. These details, which were pretty well known on board, did not tend to increase the loyalty of the officers and seamen of the Ruby. The Captain himself, as became him, expressed no opinion, but Dick ...
— Roger Willoughby - A Story of the Times of Benbow • William H. G. Kingston



Words linked to "Profit" :   profiteer, advantage, break even, not-for-profit, earn, gross profit margin, net income, profitableness, dividend, lucre, margin, acquire, portion, turn a nice penny, net, profit-maximizing, take advantage, markup, turn a nice dime, gross profit, line one's pockets, turn a profit, profit and loss account, non-profit-making, realise, filthy lucre, profit margin, gainfulness, profit-and-loss statement, sack, percentage, account, margin of profit, paper profit, income, lose, earning per share, cash in on, turn a nice dollar, windfall profit, pull in, sack up, share, take in, get, gain, profit sharing, capitalise, cleanup, killing, accumulation, capitalize, clean up, realize, net profit, fast buck, vantage, profit-maximising, profit and loss, pyramid



Copyright © 2024 Dictionary One.com