advantage

ad|van|tage [ əd`væntıdʒ ] noun ***

1. ) count or uncount something that makes one person or thing more likely to succeed than others: BENEFIT:

the advantages of a good education

give someone an advantage: Her teaching experience gives her an advantage when working with children.

advantage over: He thought that our team had an advantage over its opponents because of the bad weather.

be at an advantage: She was at a distinct advantage because people trusted her.

to someone's advantage (=making you more likely to succeed): It would be to your advantage to prepare questions in advance.

a ) count a good feature or quality that something has:

Having children when you're older has both advantages and disadvantages.

Flexibility is one of the many advantages of working from home.

have the advantage of something: The equipment has the additional advantage of being easy to carry.

─ opposite DISADVANTAGE

b ) uncount something that is of benefit to yourself:

Important principles are being sacrificed for political advantage.

Some people try to gain advantage by exploiting their personal contacts.

2. ) count or uncount used for saying the name of a player in tennis who wins the point after DEUCE:

Advantage Hingis.

take advantage of someone

to unfairly get what you want from someone who is easily persuaded to help you, trust you, or do things for you:

salesmen who take advantage of elderly customers

take advantage of something

to use a situation or opportunity to get what you want:

Moss took advantage of the defender's mistake to score a goal.

take full advantage of something: Many schools don't take full advantage of the Internet.

to good/best advantage

using or showing the best features of someone or something:

The dark foliage really shows the flowers off to best advantage.