Advantage /(?; 61, 48)/

Ad·van·tage

Advantage

n.
  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.
    Give me advantage of some brief discourse.
    The advantages of a close alliance.
  2. Superiority; mastery; -- with of or over.
    Lest Satan should get an advantage of us.
    — 2 Cor. ii. 11.
  3. Superiority of state, or that which gives it; benefit; gain; profit; as, the advantage of a good constitution.
  4. Interest of money; increase; overplus (as the thirteenth in the baker's dozen). [Obs.]
    And with advantage means to pay thy love.
  5. The first point scored after deuce. (Tennis)

Phrases & Compounds
Advantage ground
vantage ground.
To have the advantage of
to have a personal knowledge of one who does not have a reciprocal knowledge.
To take advantage of
to profit by; (often used in a bad sense) to overreach, to outwit.
Syn. -- Advantage, Advantageous, Benefit, Beneficial.

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.

Advantage

v. t.

imp. & p. p. Advantaged; p. pr. & vb. n. Advantaging

  1. To give an advantage to; to further; to promote; to benefit; to profit.
    The truth is, the archbishop's own stiffness and averseness to comply with the court designs, advantaged his adversaries against him.
    What is a man advantaged, if he gain the whole world, and lose himself, or be cast away?
    — Luke ix. 25.

Phrases & Compounds
To advantage one's self of
to avail one's self of.