nonprofit
Americanadjective
noun
-
nonprofits
plural
adjective
noun
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
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.
See Examples For:
Fraud convictions could sink the antiracism nonprofit, known for its courtroom wins against the Klan decades ago.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 12, 2026
Female cats begin breeding when the weather starts to get warmer, according to Michelson Found Animals, an animal welfare nonprofit funded by surgeon and philanthropist Dr. Gary K. Michelson.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 11, 2026
Disclosure: Google and Punchbowl News have been financial supporters of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors.
From Salon ● Aug. 10, 2026
The outfit partners with Kitten Rescue Los Angeles, a nonprofit that rescues and adopts out homeless cats and kittens.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 10, 2026
Before going to law school, he’d worked in Chicago for three years as a community organizer, earning $12,000 a year from a nonprofit that bound together a coalition of churches.
From "Becoming" by Michelle Obama
Amazon also handed out grants to local nonprofits and sponsored the annual Gilroy Garlic Festival, Bozzo said.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 7, 2026
Moore is among a number of people who have set up nonprofits and other groups to sway public opinion, and the big man’s opinion, in innovative ways.
From Slate ● Aug. 6, 2026
The Times compared Adelkoff’s most recent compensation to leaders of 16 other nonprofits in L.A.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 6, 2026
“It should be an amount paid out at some point, and that would show up in a 990,” he said, referencing the name of the tax return filed by nonprofits, which is public.
From Salon ● Aug. 1, 2026
Here were women, all of them under thirty and some as young as sixteen, who were building nonprofits, training other women to be entrepreneurs, and risking imprisonment to report on government corruption.
From "Becoming" by Michelle Obama
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.
