bottom line

American  

noun

1. the last line of a financial statement, used for showing net profit or loss.

2. net profit or loss.

3. the deciding or crucial factor.

4. the ultimate result; outcome.

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bottom line British  

noun

1. the last line of a financial statement that shows the net profit or loss of a company or organization

2. the final outcome of a process, discussion, etc

3. the most important or fundamental aspect of a situation

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bottom line Cultural  

1. The last line in an audit, which shows profit or loss.

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bottom line Idioms  

1. The ultimate result, the upshot; also, the main point or crucial factor. For example, The bottom line is that the chairman wants to dictate all of the board's decisions, or Whether or not he obeyed the law is the bottom line. This is an accounting term that refers to the earnings figures that appear on the bottom (last) line of a statement. It began to be transferred to other contexts in the mid-1900s.

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Discover More

“Bottom line” also has a derogatory implication when it refers to those people whose attention to the bottom line prevents them from recognizing the value of anything else.

By extension, “bottom line” refers to the final, determining consideration in a decision.

Other Word Forms

Derived Forms

• bottom-line
  adjective

Etymology

Origin of bottom line

First recorded in 1965–70

Example Sentences

Rising uranium prices flow straight to the bottom line.

From Barron's • Jun. 5, 2026

As this increase also has no incremental costs, most of the additional revenue should flow directly to the airport operator’s bottom line, the analyst says.

From The Wall Street Journal • Jun. 4, 2026

The bottom line is that, if current vote-count trends hold, the board will be unchanged for the next two years.

From Los Angeles Times • Jun. 3, 2026

But “the bottom line is $20,000 now is not what it was two years ago,” Eustache Clerveaux, a financial planner at Fidare Wealth Solutions, told MarketWatch.

From MarketWatch • Jun. 2, 2026

“The bottom line is that someone from management would have called patient care and said, ‘Look, would you make sure everything’s okay?’

From "Class Matters" by The New York Times

Related Words

• cardinal
• critical
• crucial
• essential
• fundamental
• important
• indispensable