a.; also 6–7 advantagious. [ad. Fr. avantageux, -euse, f. avantage: see ADVANTAGE and -OUS. The common 17th-c. spelling is evidently due to looking upon the word as formed from the med.L. avantagium, a latinized form of avantage. Cf. contagious, litigious.]
1. Of advantage; furnishing advantages; profitable, useful, opportune, beneficial, favorable.
1598. Florio, Auantaggioso, aduantageous, hauing ods or aduantage.
1606. Shaks., Tr. & Cr., V. iv. 22. I doe not flye; but aduantagious care Withdrew me from the oddes of multitude.
1667. Milton, P. L., II. 368. Here perhaps Som advantagious act may be achiev’d By sudden onset.
1766. Burke, Late Administ., Wks. II. 5. Making an advantageous treaty of commerce with Russia.
c. 1860. Maurice, Mor. & Metaph. Philos., IV. ix. § 37. 559. Condillac is an advantageous and admirable type of the school.
b. Const. to, for (unto obs.).
1610. Shaks., Temp., II. i. 49. Heere is euery thing aduantageous to life.
1618. Raleigh, Rem. (1664), 149. Advantagious also, as well for the publick weal, as the private person.
1630. Prynne, Anti-Armin., 123. What can be more aduantagious vnto Satan.
1767. Junius Lett., viii. 33. A wise doctrine … equally advantageous to the king and his subjects.
1868. Peard, Water-farming, xiii. 131. Heat is agreeable, if not advantageous to most fresh-water fish.
† 2. Apt to take advantage, overreaching, sharp. (Cotgr. Avantageux, advantageous, also very forward, full of forwardness.) Obs. rare.
1599. Sandys, Europæ Spec. (1632), 226. They [Jews] are a subtile and advantagious people and wonderfully eager of gaine.
