Meaning & use
benefit
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Meanings
nouncountable
A helpful result, advantage, or useful feature gained from something.
Grammar: Countable for separate advantages: One benefit is cost. It often follows of or from: the benefit of walking.
Patterns
- benefit of something
- benefit to someone
- for someone's benefit
A clear benefit of cycling is lower travel cost.
Regular sleep brings a noticeable benefit to memory.
She explained the rule again for the benefit of new staff.
nouncountable or uncountablebusinessfinance
Money, service, or support given by an employer, government, or insurance system.
Grammar: Countable for particular payments; uncountable for the general idea of support: claim benefit.
Patterns
- employee benefits
- claim/receive benefits
- health insurance benefits
The job includes travel benefits and dental cover.
After the flood, families applied for emergency benefits.
He checked whether the treatment was covered by his benefits.
verbtransitive
To give help or an advantage to someone or something.
Grammar: Takes an object: The tax change benefits small firms. Do not confuse with benefit from.
Patterns
- benefit someone/something
- benefit the community
- greatly benefit learners
The new ramp benefits wheelchair users and parents with strollers.
Good lighting benefits the whole neighborhood.
Lower fees could benefit students from poorer families.
verbintransitive
To receive help, advantage, or improvement from something.
Grammar: Usually followed by from: benefit from practice. It has no direct object in this sense.
Patterns
- benefit from something
- benefit greatly from feedback
- stand to benefit
The team benefited from cooler weather during the match.
She benefited greatly from honest feedback.
Local shops stood to benefit when the road reopened.
Word forms
| third person singular | benefits |
|---|---|
| past tense | benefited |
| past participle | benefited |
| -ing form | benefiting |
| plural noun | benefits |
Common combinations
- mutual benefit
- The library and school shared equipment for mutual benefit.
- cost-benefit analysis
- Before buying the van, the club made a simple cost-benefit analysis.
- for the benefit of
- The signs were translated for the benefit of visitors.
- benefit from experience
- New drivers benefit from practice in quiet streets first.
- additional benefits
- The contract lists additional benefits such as flexible hours.
Synonyms and how they differ
- advantage
- Advantage is the closest everyday word for a helpful feature; benefit also covers payments and support systems.
- perk
- Perk is informal for an extra employee benefit, not for every kind of advantage.
- gain
- Gain stresses what is obtained; benefit stresses usefulness or positive effect.
- profit
- Profit usually means money earned after costs, narrower than benefit.}],
Opposites
Word family
- beneficial adjective
- Producing a helpful effect; often followed by to.
- beneficiary noun
- A person who receives money, help, or an advantage.
- beneficence noun
- Formal or moral kindness; doing good.
Commonly confused: benefit or benefit from? benefit or profit?
benefit vs benefit from
Benefit someone means help that person; benefit from something means receive help from it.
benefit vs profit
Profit is financial gain; benefit can be any advantage, service, or payment.
Practice
Which sentence uses benefit correctly with from?
Choose one answer.
Benefit from regular rain means receive a helpful effect. The first wrongly joins transitive benefit with from, and the others misuse the object pattern.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “benefit”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.