Advantage

Part of speech: noun (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. Shak. The advantages of a close alliance. Macaulay.

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. Shak. 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.

Synonyms: 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.

Part of speech: verb (v.)

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. Fuller. What is a man advantaged, if he gain the whole world, and lose himself, or be cast away Luke ix. 25. To advantage one's self of, to avail one's self of. [Obs.]