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:
The nonprofit could get a large space cheaply on this island.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 29, 2026
He also included a letter in which he pleaded with city officials for a fee waiver as the nonprofit faced financial hardship.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 29, 2026
And in an index from Reporters Without Borders, a nonprofit organization tracking press freedom across 180 countries, the U.S. ranked 64th, its lowest grade since the early 2000s.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 28, 2026
They organized a nonprofit, drafted a petition and raised funds for a legal challenge.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 27, 2026
He worked in the barbershop for a while, then got a job working for Free Venture, an environmentally certified nonprofit that refurbishes and recycles e-waste on-site.
From "The 57 Bus" by Dashka Slater
“It puts the small businesses and nonprofits that put on shows every night at risk. And, it endangers fans’ economic well-being.”
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 28, 2026
FTX became one of Anthropic’s largest shareholders, and the FTX Foundation would go on to pledge funding for multiple AI safety nonprofits, including one that now works out of Constellation.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 27, 2026
Many states, municipalities and nonprofits offer programs to help new buyers.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 26, 2026
The FinEd50 coalition, backed by nonprofits and corporations, is also working to help.
From MarketWatch ● Sep. 26, 2026
Many nonprofits consumed 20 to 25 percent of their donations for overhead.
From "Mountains Beyond Mountains" by Tracy Kidder and Michael French
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.
