nonprofit

1. 1
   nounabbreviationellipsis

   Short form of nonprofit organization.

   The nonprofit opened three new shelters across the county this year.

   Several local nonprofits merged to share office space and cut costs.

   Note

   Drop organization from the full phrase and the adjective becomes a countable noun with a regular plural, nonprofits. What follows the word tells the two apart. When another noun comes after it, as in a nonprofit shelter, it is still the adjective. When the word stands as the head and takes its own modifiers, as in a New York City nonprofit or an independent nonprofit, it is the noun.

2. 2
   adjective

   Not seeking to earn a profit, but operating for purposes other than financial gain.

   The hospital operates on a nonprofit basis, reinvesting all its income into patient care.

   Volunteers run the nonprofit shelter without any expectation of financial return.

   Similarnot-for-profit, charitable, noncommercial

   Oppositecommercial, for-profit

   Note

   The word joins non- to profit and names an aim, not a result: what matters is that gain is not being sought. It is an either-or adjective, so nothing is more nonprofit than something else, and it usually sits before its noun. Both spellings appear: Leonard Tirado writes non-profit treatment beds in 1990, while How Wikipedia Works (2008) has the nonprofit Wikimedia Foundation.

Showing meanings only. Show all 2