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Profit; gain; advantage; use. [Obs.] Then talk no more of flight, it is no boot. Shak. To boot, in addition; over and above; besides; as a compensation for the difference of value between things bartered. Helen, to change, would give an eye to boot. Shak. A man's heaviness is refreshed long before he comes to drunkenne…

Advantage; gain; gain by plunder; booty. [Obs.] Sir. J. Harrington.

Unavailing; unprofitable; useless; without advantage or success. Chaucer. I'll follow him no more with bootless prayers. Shak. -- Boot"less*ly, adv. -- Boot"less*ness, n.

Private end or interest; secret purpose; selfish advantage. [Written also bye-end.] "Profit or some other by-end." L'Estrange.

Self-interest; private advantage. Atterbury.

A chance, opportunity, privilege, or advantage; specifically, an opportunity of riding; a lift. [Scotch] We bargained with the driver to give us a cast to the next stage. Smollett. If we had the cast o' a cart to bring it. Sir W. Scott.

n the catch. [Archaic] Addison. The common and the canon law . . . lie at catch, and wait advantages one againt another. T. Fuller.

Sake; interest; advantage. [Obs.] I did it not for his cause. 2 Cor. vii. 12.

To gain advantage over by arts, stratagem, or deception; to decieve; to delude; to get around. I circumvented whom I could not gain. Dryden.

n in. "Would induce France and Holland to close upon some measures between them to our disadvantage." Sir W. Temple. -- To close with. (a) To accede to; to consent or agree to; as, to close with the terms proposed. (b) To make an agreement with. -- To close with the land (Naut.), to approach the land.…

Coin, Quoin, a corner, wedge; -- chiefly used in the phrase coign of vantage, a position advantageous for action or observation.

That which serves for payment or recompense. The loss of present advantage to flesh and blood is repaid in a nobler coin. Hammond. Coin balance. See Illust. of Balance. -- To pay one in his own coin, to return to one the same kind of injury or ill treatment as has been received from him. [Colloq.]

ly with; as, to come into a party or scheme. -- To come it ever, to hoodwink; to get the advantage of. [Colloq.] -- To come near or nigh, to approach in place or quality to be equal to. "Nothing ancient or modern seems to come near it." Sir W. Temple. -- To come of. (a) To descend or spring from. "Of Priam's royal ra…

Exalted; overlooking; having superior strategic advantages; as, a commanding position.

g to commerce; carrying on or occupied with commerce or trade; mercantile; as, commercial advantages; commercial relations. "Princely commercial houses." Macaulay. Commercial college, a school for giving instruction in commercial knowledge and business. -- Commercial law. See under Law. -- Commercial note paper, a sm…

Convenience; accommodation; profit; benefit; advantage; interest; commodiousness. [Obs.] Drawn by the commodity of a footpath. B. Jonson. Men may seek their own commodity, yet if this were done with injury to others, it was not to be suffered. Hooker.

uting all wealth equally to all, or by holding all wealth in common for the equal use and advantage of all.

desire some confidence with you. Shak. Confidence game, any swindling operation in which advantage is taken of the confidence reposed by the victim in the swindler. -- Confidence man, a swindler. -- To take into one's confidence, to admit to a knowledge of one's feelings, purposes, or affairs.

n, to occur; incidental; casual. Weighing so much actual crime against so much contingent advantage. Burke.

That which is convenient; that which promotes comfort or advantage; that which is suited to one's wants; an accommodation. A pair of spectacles and several other little conveniences. Swift.