- Advantage
- Advantage Ad*van"tage (?; 61, 48), n. [OE. avantage,
avauntage, F. avantage, fr. avant before. See {Advance}, and
cf. {Vantage}.]
1. Any condition, circumstance, opportunity, or means,
particularly favorable to success, or to any desired end;
benefit; as, the enemy had the advantage of a more
elevated position.
[1913 Webster]
Give me advantage of some brief discourse. --Shak. [1913 Webster]
The advantages of a close alliance. --Macaulay. [1913 Webster]
2. Superiority; mastery; -- with of or over. [1913 Webster]
Lest Satan should get an advantage of us. --2 Cor. ii. 11. [1913 Webster]
3. Superiority of state, or that which gives it; benefit; gain; profit; as, the advantage of a good constitution. [1913 Webster]
4. Interest of money; increase; overplus (as the thirteenth in the baker's dozen). [Obs.] [1913 Webster]
And with advantage means to pay thy love. --Shak. [1913 Webster]
{Advantage ground}, vantage ground. [R.] --Clarendon.
{To have the advantage of} (any one), to have a personal knowledge of one who does not have a reciprocal knowledge. ``You have the advantage of me; I don't remember ever to have had the honor.'' --Sheridan.
{To take advantage of}, to profit by; (often used in a bad sense) to overreach, to outwit. [1913 Webster]
Syn: {Advantage}, {Advantageous}, {Benefit}, {Beneficial}.
Usage: We speak of a thing as a benefit, or as beneficial, when it is simply productive of good; as, the benefits of early discipline; the beneficial effects of adversity. We speak of a thing as an advantage, or as advantageous, when it affords us the means of getting forward, and places us on a ``vantage ground'' for further effort. Hence, there is a difference between the benefits and the advantages of early education; between a beneficial and an advantageous investment of money. [1913 Webster]
The Collaborative International Dictionary of English. 2000.
