pros and cons

American  

plural noun

1. the favorable and the unfavorable factors or reasons; advantages and disadvantages.

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pros and cons British  

plural noun

1. the various arguments in favour of and against a motion, course of action, etc

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pros and cons Idioms  

1. Arguments or considerations for and against something, as in We'd best weigh all the pros and cons before we decide to add a new wing to the library. This idiom is taken from the Latin pro for “for” and con for “against.” [Late 1500s]

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Etymology

Origin of pros and cons

C16: from Latin prō for + con, from contrā against

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

pros and cons

I tried it on a Saturday earlier this month to size up the pros and cons because it might be coming to an off-airport location near you as efforts to ease airport congestion increase.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 24, 2026

Both approaches have proved successful throughout football and come with their own pros and cons.

From BBC ● Jun. 22, 2026

After fretting and weighing the pros and cons, I eventually caved and decided to start mine young.

From Slate ● Jun. 20, 2026

This activity itself isn’t new: People frequently work out the big picture of romantic compatibility by listing pros and cons, and the discovery of such a list is a recurring trope in sitcoms and rom-coms.

From Salon ● Jun. 10, 2026

During that long summer I’d been over and over the various arguments, all the pros and cons, and it was no longer a question that could be decided by an act of pure reason.

From "The Things They Carried" by Tim O'Brien