Definition of gain

"gain" in the noun sense

1. addition, increase, gain

a quantity that is added

"there was an addition to property taxes this year"

"they recorded the cattle's gain in weight over a period of weeks"

2. profit, gain

the advantageous quality of being beneficial

3. amplification, gain

the amount of increase in signal power or voltage or current expressed as the ratio of output to input

4. gain

the amount by which the revenue of a business exceeds its cost of operating

"gain" in the verb sense

1. derive, gain

obtain

"derive pleasure from one's garden"

2. acquire, win, gain

win something through one's efforts

"I acquired a passing knowledge of Chinese"

"Gain an understanding of international finance"

"win someone's confidence and friendship"

3. profit, gain, benefit

derive a benefit from

"She profited from his vast experience"

4. reach, make, attain, hit, arrive at, gain

reach a destination, either real or abstract

"We hit Detroit by noon"

"The water reached the doorstep"

"We barely made it to the finish line"

"I have to hit the MAC machine before the weekend starts"

5. gain, advance, win, pull ahead, make headway, get ahead, gain ground

obtain advantages, such as points, etc.

"The home team was gaining ground"

"After defeating the Knicks, the Blazers pulled ahead of the Lakers in the battle for the number-one playoff berth in the Western Conference"

"win points"

6. advance, gain

rise in rate or price

"The stock market gained 24 points today"

7. gain, gather

increase or develop

"the peace movement gained momentum"

"the car gathers speed"

8. gain, take in, clear, make, earn, realize, realise, pull in, bring in

earn on some commercial or business transaction earn as salary or wages

"How much do you make a month in your new job?"

"She earns a lot in her new job"

"this merger brought in lots of money"

"He clears $5,000 each month"

9. gain, put on

increase (one's body weight

"She gained 20 pounds when she stopped exercising"

Source: WordNet® (An amazing lexical database of English)

Princeton University "About WordNet®."
WordNet®. Princeton University. 2010.


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Quotations for gain

An evil gain equals a loss. [ Syrus ]

Great gain makes work easy. [ Proverb ]

To gain teacheth how to spend. [ English Proverb, collected by George Herbert ]

Who escapes a duty avoids a gain. [ Theodore Parker ]

He either fears his fate too much,
Or his deserts are small.
That dares not put it to the touch
To gain or lose it all. [ Marquis Of Montrose ]

Pain is forgotten when gain comes. [ Proverb ]

Sometimes the best gain is to lose. [ English Proverb, collected by George Herbert ]

Alas by some degree of woe,
We every bliss must gain;
The heart can never a transport know,
That never feels a pain. [ Lord Lyttleton ]

The way to gain a friend is to be one. [ Michelet ]

Every one fastens where there is gain. [ English Proverb, collected by George Herbert ]

A captive fetter'd at the oar of gain. [ Falconer ]

It is an ill air where we gain nothing. [ English Proverb, collected by George Herbert ]

Muddy waters are the fishmonger's gain. [ Proverb ]

Only that which is honestly got is gain. [ Proverb ]

For me to live is Christ, to die is gain. [ Bible ]

Poor is the friendless master of a world:
A world in purchase for a friend is gain. [ Dr. Young ]

There is, sir, a critical minute in
Every man's wooing, when his mistress may
Be won, which if he carelessly neglect
To prosecute, he may wait long enough
Before he gain the like opportunity. [ Marmion ]

Gain got by a lie will burn one's fingers. [ Proverb ]

Men that hazard all
Do it in hope of fair advantages:
A golden mind stoops not to shows of dross. [ William Shakespeare ]

That, sir, which serves and seeks for gain,
And follows but for form,
Will pack, when it begins to rain,
And leave thee in a storm. [ William Shakespeare ]

Little pains
In a due hour employ'd great profit yields. [ John Philips ]

We rise by things that are 'neath our feet,
By what we have mastered of good and gain,
By the pride deposed, and passion slain,
And the vanquished ills that we hourly meet. [ J. G. Holland, Pseudonym: Timothy Titcomb ]

The elegant simplicity of the three percents. [ Lord Eldon ]

He who seeks for gain must be at some expense. [ Plautus ]

The love of praise, however concealed by art
Reigns, more or less, and glows, in every heart:
The proud, to gain it, toils on toils endure;
The modest shun it, but to make it sure. [ Young ]

The mob has nothing to lose, everything to gain. [ Goethe ]

Why is the hearse with scutcheons blazon'd round,
And with the nodding plume of ostrich crown'd?
No: the dead know it not, nor profit gain;
It only serves to prove the living vain. [ Gay ]

Those that much covet are with gain so fond,
That what they have not, that which they possess,
They scatter and unloose it from their bond.
And so, by hoping more, they have but less. [ William Shakespeare ]

Gold! gold! in all ages the curse of mankind,
Thy fetters are forged for the soul and the mind.
The limbs may be free as the wings of a bird.
And the mind be the slave of a look and a word.
To gain thee men barter eternity's crown,
Yield honour, affection, and lasting renown. [ Park Benjamin ]

Here shall the Press the People's right maintain,
Unawed by influence and unbribed by gain;
Here Patriot Truth her glorious precepts draw,
Pledged to Religion, Liberty, and Law. [ Joseph Story ]

Counts his sure gains, and hurries back for more. [ Montgomery ]

We gain the strength of the temptation we resist. [ Ralph Waldo Emerson ]

Whoso lacks a stock, his gain is not worth a chip. [ Proverb ]

Gain at the expense of reputation is manifest loss. [ Publius Syrus ]

If you lose your time you cannot get money nor gain. [ English Proverb, collected by George Herbert ]

Retreat may be success, -
Delay, best speed, - half loss, at times, whole gain. [ Robert Browning ]

What they lose in the hundred they gain in the county. [ Proverb ]

Gain at the expense of credit must be set down as loss. [ Proverb ]

The end of labor is to gain leisure. It is a great saying. [ Aristotle ]

Forever haltless hurries Time, the Durable to gain,
Be true, and thou shalt fetter Time with everlasting chain. [ Schiller ]

Let me gain by you, and no matter whether you love me or not. [ Proverb ]

A man's own heart must ever be given to gain that of another. [ Goldsmith ]

The love of gain never made a painter; but it has marred many. [ Washington Allston ]

Skilful pilots gain their reputation from storms and tempests. [ Epicurus ]

What we gain by experience is not worth what we lose in illusion. [ J. Petit-Senn ]

We gain justice, judgment, with years, or else years are in vain. [ Owen Meredith ]

To be great one must be positive, and gain strength through foes. [ Donn Piatt ]

To appreciate the noble is a gain which can never be torn from us. [ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe ]

In these times gain is not only a matter of greed, but of ambition. [ Joubert ]

To gain a crown by fighting for it is great; to reject it is divine. [ Friedrich Schiller ]

The good which bloodshed could not gain your peaceful zeal shall find. [ Whittier ]

Crimes succeed by sudden despatch; honest counsels gain vigor by delay. [ Tacitus ]

You gain your point if your industrious art can make unusual words easy. [ Roscommon ]

Keep thy shop, and thy shop will keep thee.Light gains make heavy purses.
'Tis good to be merry and wise. [ George Chapman ]

Everywhere in life, the true question is not what we gain, but what we do. [ Carlyle ]

There is no creature so contemptible but by resolution may gain his point. [ L'Estrange ]

There is no gain so certain as that which arises from sparing what you have. [ Publius Syrus ]

It is the duty of every one to strive to gain and deserve a good reputation. [ Atterbury ]

By persisting in your path, though you forfeit the little, you gain the great. [ Ralph Waldo Emerson ]

By forgetting ourselves in thinking of the feelings of others we gain happiness. [ Henry D. Chapin ]

Make the most of time, it glides away so fast; but order teaches you to gain time. [ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe ]

The way to gain a good reputation, is to endeavor to be what you desire to appear. [ Socrates ]

The weakness of woman gives to some men a victory that their merit would never gain.

Great men lose somewhat of their greatness by being near us; ordinary men gain much. [ Landor ]

That which had no force in the beginning can gain no strength from the lapse of time. [ Law Maxim ]

The most brilliant fortunes are often not worth the littleness required to gain them. [ Rochefoucauld ]

The ability to appreciate what is noble is a gain which no one can ever take from us. [ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe ]

Old men who preserve the desires of youth lose in consideration what they gain in ridicule. [ Napoleon I ]

As there is no worldly gain without some loss, so there is no worldly loss without some gain. [ Quarles ]

The training of children is a profession where we must know to lose time in order to gain it. [ Rousseau ]

With an evening coat and a white tie, even a stock broker can gain a reputation for being civilized. [ Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Grey ]

That hour is coming, when we shall more earnestly wish to gain time, than ever we studied to spend it. [ Proverb ]

Gravity is a taught trick to gain credit of the world for more sense and knowledge than a man is worth. [ Sterne ]

The gain of lying is nothing else but not to be trusted of any, nor to be believed when we say the truth. [ Sir Walter Raleigh ]

He that by usury and unjust gain increaseth his substance, he shall gather it for him that will pity the poor. [ Bible ]

For everything you have missed, you have gained something else; and for everything you gain, you lose something. [ Ralph Waldo Emerson ]

In a State, pecuniary gain is not to be considered to be prosperity, but its prosperity will be found in righteousness. [ Confucius ]

It is from our enemies chat we often gain excellent maxims, and are frequently surprised into reason by their mistakes. [ Thomas Paine ]

It is no less merit to keep what you have got than to gain it. In the one there is chance; the other will be a work of art. [ Ovid ]

The greater the difficulty the more glory in surmounting it. Skilful pilots gain their reputation from storms and tempests. [ Epicurus ]

Shun to seek what is hid in the Womb of the morrow, and set down as gain in life's ledger whatever time fate shall have granted thee. [ Horace ]

The chief ingredients in the composition of those qualities that gain esteem and praise are good nature, truth, good sense, and good breeding. [ Addison ]

We gain nothing by being with such as ourselves. We encourage one another in mediocrity. I am always longing to be with men more excellent than myself. [ Lamb ]

That man is little to be envied whose patriotism would not gain force upon the plain of Marathon, or whose piety would not grow warmer among the ruins of Iona. [ Johnson ]

A good library is an anchor to keep a young man from roving, and a helm to aid an old man to gain the greatest possible benefit from what remains of the breeze. [ W. D. Haley ]

As whole caravans may light their lamps from one candle without exhausting it, so myriads of tribes may gain wisdom from the great Book without impoverishing it. [ Rabbi Ben Azai ]

Resolve to edge in a little reading every day, if it is but a single sentence. If you gain fifteen minutes a day, it will make itself felt at the end of the year. [ Horace Mann ]

Pride is handsome, economical; pride eradicates so many vices, letting none subsist but itself, that it seems as if it were a great gain to exchange vanity for pride. [ Emerson ]

Through zeal knowledge is gotten, through lack of zeal knowledge is lost; let a man who knows this double path of gain and loss thus place himself that knowledge may grow. [ Buddha ]

Sincerity is an openness of heart; it is found in a very few people, and that which we see. commonly is not it, but a subtle dissimulation, to gain the confidence of others. [ Rochefoucauld ]

Twenty people can gain money for one who can use it; and the vital question for individuals and for nations, is never how much do they make, but to what purpose do they spend. [ John Ruskin ]

Valor and power may gain a lasting memory, but where are they when the brave and mighty are departed? Their effects may remain, but they live not in them any more than the fire in the work of the potter. [ Hartley Coleridge ]

It is harder to avoid censure than to gain applause; for this may be done by one great or wise action in an age. Rut to escape censure a man must pass his whole life without saying or doing one ill or foolish thing. [ Hume ]

There are jilts in friendship, as well as in love; and by the behavior of some men in both, one would almost imagine that they industriously sought to gain the affections of others with the view only of making the parties miserable. [ Fielding ]

Avarice begets more vices than Priam did children, and like Priam survives them all. It starves its keeper to surfeit those who wish him dead, and makes him submit to more mortifications to lose heaven than the martyr undergoes to gain it. [ Colton ]

A man who knows the world will not only make the most of everything he does know, but of many things he does not know, and will gain more credit by his adroit mode of hiding his ignorance; than the pedant by his awkward attempt to exhibit his erudition. [ Colton ]

A man who knows the world, will not only make the most of everything he does know, but of many things he does not know; and will gain more credit by the dexterity he displays in hiding his ignorance, than the pedant by his awkward attempt to exhibit his erudition. [ Sir R. B. Cotton ]

The very essence of gravity was design, and, consequently, deceit; it was a taught trick to gain credit of the world for more sense and knowledge than a man was worth; and that with all its pretensions it was no better, but often worse, than what a French wit had long ago defined it - a mysterious carriage of the body to cover the defects of the mind. [ Sterne ]

No woman is a genius: women are a decorative sex. They never have anything to say, but they say it charmingly. They represent the triumph of matter over mind, just as men represent the triumph of mind over morals. There are only two kinds of women, the plain and the colored. The plain women are very useful. If you want to gain a reputation for respectability you have merely to take them down to supper. The other women are very charming. They commit one mistake, however. They paint in order to try to look young. Our grandmothers painted in order to try to talk brilliantly. Rouge and esprit used to go together. That has all gone out now. As long as a woman can look ten years younger than her own daughter she is perfectly satisfied. [ Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Grey ]

gain in Scrabble®

The word gain is playable in Scrabble®, no blanks required.

Scrabble® Letter Score: 5

Highest Scoring Scrabble® Play In The Letters gain:

GAIN
(21)
 

All Scrabble® Plays For The Word gain

GAIN
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The 110 Highest Scoring Scrabble® Plays For Words Using The Letters In gain

GAIN
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AGIN
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gain in Words With Friends™

The word gain is playable in Words With Friends™, no blanks required.

Words With Friends™ Letter Score: 7

Highest Scoring Words With Friends™ Play In The Letters gain:

GAIN
(39)
 

All Words With Friends™ Plays For The Word gain

GAIN
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GAIN
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GAIN
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The 118 Highest Scoring Words With Friends™ Plays Using The Letters In gain

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Word Growth involving gain

Shorter words in gain

ai

in

Longer words containing gain

again against

again bornagain

bargain bargainable

bargain bargained outbargained

bargain bargained rebargained

bargain bargainee bargainees

bargain bargainer bargainers

bargain bargaining bargainings

bargain bargaining outbargaining

bargain bargaining rebargaining

bargain bargainor bargainors

bargain bargains outbargains

bargain bargains rebargains

bargain outbargain outbargained

bargain outbargain outbargaining

bargain outbargain outbargains

bargain rebargain rebargained

bargain rebargain rebargaining

bargain rebargain rebargains

bougainvillaea bougainvillaeas

bougainvillea bougainvilleas

gainable bargainable

gainable regainable

gainbirth gainbirths

gained bargained outbargained

gained bargained rebargained

gained outgained

gained regained

gainer bargainer bargainers

gainer gainers bargainers

gainer gainers regainers

gainer regainer regainers

gainful gainfully

gainful gainfulness

gaining bargaining bargainings

gaining bargaining outbargaining

gaining bargaining rebargaining

gaining gainings bargainings

gaining outgaining

gaining regaining

gainless gainlessly

gainless gainlessness

gainlier ungainlier

gainliest ungainliest

gainliness ungainliness

gainly ungainly

gains against

gains bargains outbargains

gains bargains rebargains

gains gainsaid

gains gainsay gainsayer gainsayers

gains gainsay gainsaying gainsayings

gains gainsay gainsays

gains outgains

gains regains

outgain outgained

outgain outgaining

outgain outgains

regain regainable

regain regained

regain regainer regainers

regain regaining

regain regains