nonprofit
Americanadjective
noun
adjective
noun
Etymology
Origin of nonprofit
Compare meaning
How does nonprofit compare to similar and commonly confused words? Explore the most common comparisons:
Explanation
A business or organization is nonprofit if its main purpose isn't making money for its owners. Nonprofit companies usually raise money for charities. You can use the word nonprofit as an adjective or a noun — a nonprofit is an organization that benefits some public good, rather than raising revenue for stockholders or owners. There are educational nonprofits, religious nonprofits, public health nonprofits, and many others. The word's been around since the 1920s, combining non, or "not," with profit, from the Latin root profectus, "advance, increase, success, or progress."
Vocabulary lists containing nonprofit
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non-
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Florida's B.E.S.T. Common Prefixes: non-
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Freedom 250 has said it was a nonprofit "dedicated to uniting Americans around the nation's 250th anniversary".
From BBC • May 30, 2026
“We will not allow allegations involving one former employee of a nonprofit organization to discredit an entire field of work and dedicated intervention workers who show up every day to prevent harm.”
From Los Angeles Times • May 30, 2026
His partner confided that he, too, had about $12,000 of credit-card debt and had recently started working with Consolidated Credit, a nonprofit that provides debt-management programs to help people pay down their balances.
From The Wall Street Journal • May 29, 2026
Only 4% of retirees wait until 70 or later to claim Social Security, according to a 2024 study by nonprofit Transamerica Center for Retirement Studies in collaboration with the Transamerica Institute.
From MarketWatch • May 29, 2026
The plan was to use that funding to start a new nonprofit.
From "Just Mercy" by Bryan Stevenson
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
