different between beneficial vs profitable

English

Etymology

From Late Latin benefici?lis (“beneficial”), from Latin beneficium (“benefit, favor, kindness”).

Pronunciation

• enPR: b?n?f?sh'?l, IPA^(key): /?b?n??f???l/

Adjective

beneficial (comparative more beneficial, superlative most beneficial)

1. Helpful or good to something or someone.

2. Relating to a benefice.

Synonyms

• (helpful or good): advantageous, behooveful (archaic), helpful, useful
• (relating to a benefice): usufructuary, usufructuous

Antonyms

• maleficial, nocuous, damaging, harmful (doing harm to someone)
• innocuous, undamaging, harmless (doing no harm; doing neither harm nor good)

Derived terms

• beneficialness
• beneficial owner

Translations

Noun

beneficial (plural beneficials)

1. Something that is beneficial.

English

Etymology

Old French profitable.

Pronunciation

• (General American) IPA^(key): /?p??f?t?bl?/
• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /?p??f?t?bl?/
• Hyphenation: prof?it?a?ble

Adjective

profitable (comparative more profitable, superlative most profitable)

1. Producing a profit.
2. Beneficial, serviceable, of use.
   • c. 1521, John Skelton, “Speke Parott”:

     I wylbe ferme and ?tabyll
     And to yow ?eruyceabyll
     And also prophytabyll
     Yf ye be agreabyll
     My propyr Be??e
     To turne a gayne to me

   • 1953, ?Richmond Lattimore, Aeschylus, "Prometheus Bound", in Greek Tragedies

     It is a profitable thing, if one is wise, to seem foolish.

Synonyms

• lucrative
• beneficial

Antonyms

• unprofitable

Derived terms

Translations

French

Etymology

From profiter +? -able

Adjective

profitable (plural profitables)

1. profitable

Further reading

• “profitable” in Trésor de la langue française informatisé (The Digitized Treasury of the French Language).

Old French

Etymology

profiter +? -able.

Adjective

profitable m (oblique and nominative feminine singular profitable)

1. useful; usable; that one can make use of

Descendants

• ? English: profitable
• French: profitable

References

• profitable on the Anglo-Norman On-Line Hub