Word.ws English Dictionary

profiteering

profiteering noun: the act of making an unreasonable profit not justified by the corresponding assumption of risk, or by doing so unethically or opportunistically. Also the present participle and gerund of profiteer.

Noun

profiteering (usually uncountable, plural profiteerings)

  1. (usually) The act of making an unreasonable profit not justified by the corresponding assumption of risk, or by doing so unethically or opportunistically.
    • war profiteering
    • Pfizer has made nearly $26bn (£21bn) in revenues in the first three months of the year, the bulk from its Covid-19 vaccine and new pill to treat the virus, prompting fresh accusations of pandemic profiteering.2022 May 3, Julia Kollewe, “Pfizer accused of Covid profiteering as first-quarter sales hit $26bn”, in The Guardian

Also used as

profiteering is also the present participle and gerund of profiteer.

Forms of profiteering

pluralprofiteerings

Words formed from profiteering

Questions about profiteering

What does profiteering mean?
Profiteering means the act of making an unreasonable profit not justified by the corresponding assumption of risk, or by doing so unethically or opportunistically.
What part of speech is profiteering?
Profiteering is a noun.
What is the plural of profiteering?
The plural of profiteering is profiteerings.

Words near profiteering in the dictionary

  1. profitablest
  2. profitably
  3. profited
  4. profiteer
  5. profiteered
  6. profiteering
  7. profiteerings
  8. profiteers
  9. profiter
  10. profiterole
  11. profiteroles

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: profiteering (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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Cite this entry: “profiteering.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/profiteering. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.