exploit

1 of 2

noun

ex·​ploit ˈek-ˌsplȯit  ik-ˈsplȯit 

plural exploits

: deed, act

especially : a notable, memorable, or heroic act

a daring exploit

a book about his youthful exploits

I took out the list of Professor Challenger's exploits, and I read it over under the electric lamp.

—Arthur Conan Doyle

About midnight the gang returned, with various articles of plunder, and talked over their exploits …

—Sir Walter Scott

It used to be rare for C.I.A. employees to recount their exploits, or grievances, in print.

—Alex Berenson

exploit

2 of 2

verb

ex·​ploit ik-ˈsplȯit  ˈek-ˌsplȯit 

exploited; exploiting; exploits

transitive verb

1

: to make productive use of : utilize

exploiting your talents

exploit your opponent's weakness

2

: to make use of meanly or unfairly for one's own advantage

exploiting migrant farm workers

exploitability

ik-ˌsploi-tə-ˈbi-lə-tē 

noun

exploitable

ik-ˈsplȯi-tə-bəl 

adjective

exploiter noun

Synonyms

Noun

• deed
• feat
• number
• stunt
• tour de force
• trick

Verb

• abuse
• capitalize (on)
• cash in (on)
• impose (on or upon)
• leverage
• milk
• pimp
• play (on or upon)
• use
• work

Choose the Right Synonym for exploit

feat, exploit, achievement mean a remarkable deed.

feat implies strength or dexterity or daring.

an acrobatic feat

exploit suggests an adventurous or heroic act.

his exploits as a spy

achievement implies hard-won success in the face of difficulty or opposition.

her achievements as a chemist

Examples of exploit in a Sentence

Noun

the fanciful exploits of the giant lumberjack Paul Bunyan

once famed as an actor, John Wilkes Booth is now remembered for a single exploit, his assassination of Lincoln

Verb

He has never fully exploited his talents.

Top athletes are able to exploit their opponents' weaknesses.

She said the tragedy had been exploited by the media.

Recent Examples on the Web

Noun

Now that word is out that exploits are easy and effective, threat groups are likely racing to capitalize on the vulnerability before targets patch it. —John Timmer, Ars Technica, 6 Nov. 2023

Her early efforts to fit in with the other kids, to match their athletic exploits, didn’t go well. —Jack Dolan, Los Angeles Times, 2 Nov. 2023

The blues is a mythological genre, smuggling wisdom inside tales of evils and exploits which sometimes strain credulity. —Hanif Abdurraqib, The New Yorker, 2 Oct. 2023

Fortunately for Thompson, his efforts at crafting his Vegas trip into the much longer story of the exploits of Raoul Duke and his attorney, Dr. Gonzo, had not entirely gone to waste. —Rory Feehan, SPIN, 9 Nov. 2023

Resigning would also do little to ease the burden of being George Santos — his exploits serving as tabloid fodder, his name a punchline. —Grace Ashford, New York Times, 22 Oct. 2023

Several Israeli companies are developing exploits that take advantage of weaknesses in the technical mechanisms that bombard you with ads online, Haaretz reports, allowing attackers to track people and hack their devices. —WIRED, 16 Sep. 2023

Meanwhile, Curry’s later years were marred by health problems — a stroke, prostate cancer, and most recently, dementia, a condition that has seemingly not curbed his ability to tell stories about growing up in Roxbury, his younger brother’s basketball exploits, or his time as a firefighter. —Danny McDonald, BostonGlobe.com, 12 Sep. 2023

What follows are the exploits of a twentysomething on the rebound: the Vegas nights with Paris Hilton, the Vegas wedding to a childhood friend. —Lauren Michele Jackson, The New Yorker, 29 Oct. 2023

Verb

Somehow, the cultures that put in the work and sacrifice, ultimately building global economies, are the ones that get exploited. —Florence O'Connor, Vogue, 22 Nov. 2023

That effort, by its nature, exploits the Native American and Latino communities in Española, N.M., near Santa Fe, while at the same time projecting their own righteousness as do-gooders for those same locals. —Ryan Faughnder, Los Angeles Times, 21 Nov. 2023

In 1972, the government assumed the lease to prevent the house from being exploited for any glorification of Nazi ideology. —Graham Bowley, New York Times, 19 Nov. 2023

This can happen through various means, such as intercepting your wireless signals, infecting your devices or exploiting your software vulnerabilities. —Kurt Knutsson, Fox News, 18 Nov. 2023

But as railroads strive to move their cargo faster, that honor system, ProPublica found, is being exploited. —Topher Sanders, ProPublica, 15 Nov. 2023

This relatively new approach exploits a general relativistic effect. —Richard Panek, Scientific American, 14 Nov. 2023

Jared Goff exploited Chargers pass defenders by looking them off and completing passes against loose coverage, both zone and man. —Tom Krasovic, San Diego Union-Tribune, 14 Nov. 2023

About 1,500 Hamas terrorists were killed by Israelis, and their bodies, phones and weapons were exploited as an intelligence bonanza. —Joby Warrick, Washington Post, 12 Nov. 2023

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Word History

Etymology

Noun

Middle English espleit, expleit, esploit, exploit "furtherance, favorable outcome, outcome (good or bad), undertaking, military expedition, deed of arms," borrowed from Anglo-French espleit, esploit, exploit "carrying out, execution, achievement, course, success, gain," probably noun derivative of espleiter, esploiter "to carry out, achieve, expedite" — more at exploit entry 2

Verb

Middle English espleiten, expleiten, expleten, esploiten "to facilitate, expedite (a journey), fulfill (a need), execute, complete, relate, explain," borrowed from Anglo-French espleiter, esploiter, exploiter "to carry out, achieve, promote, expedite, make use of, use unfairly, progress, succeed, act," probably going back to Vulgar Latin *explicitāre, repetitive derivative of Latin explicāre "to free from folds or creases, unroll, disentangle, spread out, bring into play, exercise" — more at explicate

Note: The Middle English form expleten suggests association with Latin explēre "to fill up, carry to completion, accomplish" (compare expletive entry 2). Latinizing variants with ex- have completely replaced earlier es- in both English and French. Earlier standard etymological dictionaries of French (Französisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, Bloch and Wartburg's Dictionnaire étymologique de la langue française) see the noun as the more basic form, going back to *explicitum, allegedly formed from the neuter of the Latin past participle explicitus (see explicit)—though the sense of the noun is active, not passive. Romance outcomes of *explicitāre are mainly restricted to Gallo-Romance (as Old Occitan esplechar "to make use of, execute, accomplish") and Catalan (esplet "harvest," espletar "to harvest"). Note that *explicitāre preserves only the figurative meaning "bring into play, exercise" of the root word explicāre, out of which French and English have elaborated further meanings. The sense "relate, explain" of the Middle English verb is not paralleled in French and did not survive into Modern English.

First Known Use

Noun

15th century, in the meaning defined above

Verb

1795, in the meaning defined at sense 1

Kids Definition

exploit

1 of 2 noun

ex·​ploit ˈek-ˌsplȯit  ik-ˈsplȯit 

: a brave or daring act

exploit

2 of 2 verb

ex·​ploit ik-ˈsplȯit  ˈek-ˌsplȯit 

1

: to get value or use from

exploit your talents

exploit an opponent's weaknesses

2

: to make use of unfairly for one's own advantage

exploiting migrant farm workers

exploitable

-ə-bəl 

adjective

exploitation

ˌek-ˌsplȯi-ˈtā-shən

noun

exploiter

ik-ˈsplȯit-ər

ˈek-ˌsplȯit-

noun