PROFITS

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does profits mean? 

• PROFITS (noun)
  The noun PROFITS has 2 senses:

1. the excess of revenues over outlays in a given period of time (including depreciation and other non-cash expenses)

2. something won (especially money)

  Familiarity information: PROFITS used as a noun is rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• PROFITS (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

The excess of revenues over outlays in a given period of time (including depreciation and other non-cash expenses)

Classified under:

Nouns denoting possession and transfer of possession

Synonyms:

earnings; lucre; net; net income; net profit; profit; profits

Hypernyms ("profits" is a kind of...):

income (the financial gain (earned or unearned) accruing over a given period of time)

Meronyms (parts of "profits"):

part; percentage; portion; share (assets belonging to or due to or contributed by an individual person or group)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "profits"):

earning per share (the portion of a company's profit allocated to each outstanding share of common stock)

windfall profit (profit that occurs unexpectedly as a consequence of some event not controlled by those who profit from it)

cleanup; killing (a very large profit)

fast buck; quick buck (quick or easy earnings)

filthy lucre (shameful profit)

gross profit; gross profit margin; margin ((finance) the net sales minus the cost of goods and services sold)

markup (the amount added to the cost to determine the asking price)

accumulation ((finance) profits that are not paid out as dividends but are added to the capital base of the corporation)

dividend (that part of the earnings of a corporation that is distributed to its shareholders; usually paid quarterly)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Something won (especially money)

Classified under:

Nouns denoting possession and transfer of possession

Synonyms:

profits; win; winnings

Hypernyms ("profits" is a kind of...):

financial gain (the amount of monetary gain)

 Context examples 

The harder and smarter you worked last year, the greater your profits will be now.

(AstrologyZone.com, by Susan Miller)

He would not have ventured so long a trip had he not expected generous profits.

(White Fang, by Jack London)

Who is it who profits by it?

(The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

It is on that extensive footing that Mr. Micawber, I know from my own knowledge of him, is calculated to shine; and the profits, I am told, are e-NOR-MOUS!

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

In addition, a crop that produces its own herbicide potentially would be more efficient—increasing profits for farmers and food processors.

(Transferring Sorghum’s Weed-Killing Power to Rice, U.S. Department of Agriculture)

The extent to which it can generate income may be constrained, or the use of those profits may be restricted.

(Nonprofit Organization, NCI Thesaurus)

Each had put an equal share of capital into the outfitting, and the profits were to be divided equally.

(Love of Life and Other Stories, by Jack London)

The authors recommend that toy companies and others who use endangered species as trademarks donate some of their profits to wildlife conservation.

(Study: Popularity of Wildlife Can Harm Public's Perception, VOA)

On their first coming into the country, they had lived in proportion to their income, quietly, keeping little company, and that little unexpensively; but the last year or two had brought them a considerable increase of means—the house in town had yielded greater profits, and fortune in general had smiled on them.

(Emma, by Jane Austen)

A man might be respected with only one of these advantages, but without either he was considered, except in very rare instances, as a vagabond and a slave, doomed to waste his powers for the profits of the chosen few!

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)