revenue
Americannoun
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revenues
plural
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the income of a government from taxation, excise duties, customs, or other sources, appropriated to the payment of the public expenses.
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the government department charged with the collection of such income.
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revenues, the collective items or amounts of income of a person, a state, etc.
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the return or yield from any kind of property, patent, service, etc.; income.
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an amount of money regularly coming in.
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a particular item or source of income.
noun
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the income accruing from taxation to a government during a specified period of time, usually a year
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a government department responsible for the collection of government revenue
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( as modifier )
revenue men
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the gross income from a business enterprise, investment, property, etc
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a particular item of income
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something that yields a regular financial return; source of income
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Etymology
Origin of revenue
First recorded in 1375–1425; late Middle English, from Middle French, noun use of feminine past participle of revenir “to return,” from Latin revenīre, equivalent to re- re- + venīre “to come ”
Explanation
Revenue is money earned by a business, or income received by the government from taxes. The government is always interested in dreaming up new sources of revenue, and so is the average head of a company unless she doesn't want to be the head anymore. Revenue is from a French word meaning "to return or come back," and dollar returns are always a welcome thing. Declining advertising revenue will doom your website, no matter how great it is. If your lemonade stand is not making a profit, you might consider lowering costs. Maybe you could get cheaper lemonade mix? Or you might look for more creative and exciting ways to increase revenue––like raiding the pantry for cookies you can sell as well.
Vocabulary lists containing revenue
Vocabulary from "Stop Expecting Games to Build Empathy" by Julie Muncy
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Stamp Act (1765)
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Fidel Castro (1926-2016) Memorial List
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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 shows no longer deliver the ratings necessary to attract enough ad revenue to cover their costs on broadcast networks, which include rights fees and production costs.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 12, 2026
The company doesn’t break out charging revenue in its financial reports but lists it as part of a services business that brought in $4.6 billion in the second quarter.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 11, 2026
The commission, in contrast, used the word "sham" eight times when describing City's dealings, including artificially inflating revenue by more than £900m through "sham" deals.
From BBC ● Oct. 11, 2026
Generating more tax revenue doesn’t necessarily mean everyone will pay more in taxes, Schwabish noted.
From MarketWatch ● Oct. 9, 2026
He was buying equipment to make his collection of cars simpler, but he wasn’t generating the kind of revenue necessary to support the costs.
From "Just Mercy" by Bryan Stevenson
Although higher inflation will boost tax revenues, it will also eat into the value of departments' cash budgets, the IFS said.
From BBC ● Oct. 11, 2026
The Financial Times reported that the mismatch was due to OpenAI investors trying to directly compare its annualized revenues with rival Anthropic, which determines this number differently.
From MarketWatch ● Oct. 8, 2026
In 2025, the airline made a net profit of $531 million off revenues of $3.7 billion.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 7, 2026
From 2023 to 2025, Leslie’s reported slipping revenues, while posting losses in the last two years.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 7, 2026
J. T.’s franchise quadrupled its revenues during this period.
From "Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything" by Steven D. Levitt
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.
