bottom line

American  

noun

• bottom lines
  plural

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

Inflected Forms

Nouns

• bottom lines
  plural

Etymology

Origin of bottom line

First recorded in 1965–70

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

bottom line

Buyers will pay a premium to get products in weeks instead of months, and that has helped Jergens’ bottom line.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 11, 2026

But costs have not gone down, he said, with tariffs and inflation contributing to his bottom line.

From BBC ● Oct. 11, 2026

It also projected that its larger package of restaurant improvements could generate approximately $100,000 in annual gross cash-flow benefits for an average U.S. restaurant, with most of those gains eventually benefiting the bottom line.

From Salon ● Oct. 11, 2026

The bottom line: Yet again, we see that it’s incredibly difficult to beat a simple strategy of buying and holding a broad stock-market index fund.

From MarketWatch ● Oct. 9, 2026

Doesn’t matter—it’s all down to protocol in the end, and the bottom line is that I shouldn’t have taken that plane to France in the first place.

From "Code Name Verity" by Elizabeth Wein

Related Words

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