Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • adjective Providing a gain; profitable.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • Producing profit or advantage; advancing interest or happiness; profitable; advantageous; lucrative.
  • Contrary; disposed to get the advantage; fractious.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • adjective Profitable; advantageous; lucrative.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • adjective Providing gain; profitable.
  • adjective Contrary.
  • adjective Disposed to taking advantage of.
  • adjective Troublesome; fractious; hard to handle.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • adjective yielding a fair profit

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From gain (“profit, foredeal”) +‎ -ful.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From gain (“against, contrary”) +‎ -ful.

Support

Help support Wordnik (and make this page ad-free) by adopting the word gainful.

Examples

  • The term gainful employment, has been in the statute for over 40 years, and during the most recent reauthorization of the Higher Education Act, there was no debate or discussion about a need to further define the term.

    Penny Lee: A Vote for Students Penny Lee 2011

  • The term gainful employment, has been in the statute for over 40 years, and during the most recent reauthorization of the Higher Education Act, there was no debate or discussion about a need to further define the term.

    Penny Lee: A Vote for Students Penny Lee 2011

  • I am currently in gainful employment as a consultant on this project.

    “Response Times” Are Back SHOCK! « POLICE INSPECTOR BLOG Inspector Gadget 2010

  • I ` m not too chuffed that Jackie is still in gainful employment since the recent revelations about Damian Green etc, something which didn ` t seem to get a mention on the BBC tonight.

    Credit Crunch? More Senior Officers; that’s what we need! « POLICE INSPECTOR BLOG Inspector Gadget 2009

  • If they're useless but keep large numbers of outreach workers in gainful employment - they'll love them, call for more, and work assiduously at propagating a myth of 'success'.

    Archive 2005-05-15 Laban 2005

  • If they're useless but keep large numbers of outreach workers in gainful employment - they'll love them, call for more, and work assiduously at propagating a myth of 'success'.

    Doomed Again Laban 2005

  • If they're useless but keep large numbers of outreach workers in gainful employment - they'll love them, call for more, and work assiduously at propagating a myth of 'success'.

    May 15, 2005 Laban 2005

  • Two or three days a week seems to be as much as the Detroit worker feels necessary to be involved in gainful employment.

    The End of the Work Ethic 1972

  • We can see the extent to which women have become free for new responsibilities by the fact that the number of women in gainful occupations in Canada multiplied almost five times in the half-century from 1901 to 1951.

    Christmas Meeting 1957

  • We can see the extent to which women have become free for new responsibilities by the fact that the number of women in gainful occupations in Canada multiplied almost five times in the half-century from 1901 to 1951.

    Canadian Women as Citizens 1957

Comments

Log in or sign up to get involved in the conversation. It's quick and easy.

  • How seldom some words are employed these days!

    March 7, 2011