Word.ws English Dictionary

gainsome

/ˈɡeɪnsʌm/

gainsome adjective: marked by gain; gainful; profitable.

Adjective (1)

gainsome (comparative more gainsome, superlative most gainsome)

  1. Marked by gain; gainful; profitable.
    • The cotton grower felt delight at the gainsome expansion of his cotton fields.1843, Julius Rubens Ames, Benjamin Lundy, The Legion of Liberty!
    • We have the feasible potential to be competitive in a gainsome way in many sectors.2008, Raj Kumar, International Economics

Adjective (2)

gainsome (comparative more gainsome, superlative most gainsome)

  1. Well-formed; handsome; gainly.

Forms of gainsome

comparativemore gainsome
superlativemost gainsome

Origin of gainsome

From gain (“profit, advantage, foredeal, benefit”) + -some.

From gain (“straight, direct, immediate, short”) + -some.

Words formed from gainsome

Questions about gainsome

What does gainsome mean?
Gainsome means marked by gain; gainful; profitable.
What part of speech is gainsome?
Gainsome is an adjective.
How do you pronounce gainsome?
Gainsome is pronounced /ˈɡeɪnsʌm/.

Words near gainsome in the dictionary

  1. gainsets
  2. gainsetting
  3. gainshare
  4. gainsharing
  5. gainside
  6. gainsome
  7. gainspeaker
  8. gainspeaking
  9. gainst
  10. gainstand
  11. gainstander

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: gainsome (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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