unprofitable
noun · adjective
Simple meaning
A person or thing that fails to make a profit.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
uhnprahfihtuhbuhlSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
ənpˈɹɑfɪtəbəl
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
noun
A person or thing that fails to make a profit.
adjective
Not making a profit.
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- C2 · Proficient (estimated)
- Frequency
- Rare
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: A person or thing that fails to make a profit.
Used this way, unprofitable is a reasonably familiar word with a clearly unfavourable pull. It criticises, but without shouting.
- Emotional tone
- Negative
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Gentle
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- Serious and weighty
- Usage feel
- Critical but measured
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
More ways to use unprofitable
- “Deposits abandoned by mining companies as unprofitable.”adjective
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Common Patterns and Combinations
How this word naturally appears with others.
Related Words
Connected to the same idea, not synonyms.
- profitabilitynoun
- profitableadjective
- shutverb
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.