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Whatever promotes prosperity and personal happiness, or adds value to property; advantage; profit. Men have no right to what is not for their benefit. Burke.

established for best, and not to be mended." Milton. -- To get the best of, to gain an advantage over, whether fairly or unfairly. -- To make the best of. (a) To improve to the utmost; to use or dispose of to the greatest advantage. "Let there be freedom to carry their commodities where they can make the best of them…

Advantage, superiority, or victory; -- usually with of; as, to get the better of an enemy.

Any process in which advantage is taken of the fact that prepared bitumen is rendered insoluble by exposure to light, as in photolithography.

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.

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.

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.…

A var. spelling of 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.]

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 race…

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

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 smal…

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.