- premium
- premium, prize, award, reward, meed, guerdon, bounty, bonus are comparable when they mean something which is bestowed upon a person as a recompense for cooperation, greater effort, superior merit, or supremacy in competition.Premium is applied usually to something extra or additional that serves as an incentive to buy, sell, loan, compete, or strive{
the worker who does more ... is rewarded by a premium, which is usually a percentage of the amount the additional work would cost—G. D. Halsey
}{racking their brains last fall for a new premium that would intrigue ... the breakfast-food public— Cerf
}{ask a premium as well as interest for a loan
}Prize is applied to something which is striven for or, sometimes, which may be won by chance; it is bestowed upon the winner in a contest or competition or in a lottery{bridge prizes
}{a prize for the best composition
}{at last the Dodo said, "Everybody has won, and all must have prizes" —Lewis Carroll
}In extended use prize commonly implies effort, struggle, and uncertainty in the seeking and often imputes value or worth to what is sought or competed for{let a man contend to the uttermost for his life's set prize, be it what it will!— Browning
}{he had embarked early upon that desperate game of which the prize was a throne, and the forfeit, life— Repplier
}{the leading chairmanships are regarded as great prizes— Nevins
}Award implies both a decision of judges and a bestowal of a prize or an honor; it is therefore often preferred to prize when the recipients have not been competitors in the strict sense but have in their work or performances fulfilled the conditions required by those who offer prizes{receive an award for civic service
}{the urge to make the most of ourselves and to get awards varying with our success— J. T. Adamsy
}Award is also applicable to the act of awarding a prize or to the decision in a particular competition{the judges may conceivably find themselves . . . unable to make an award— Barkham
}Reward strongly involves the idea of recompense for something good or meritorious or ironically for something evil; it may be used in reference to a prize or premium only when that has been earned (as by effort or sacrifice); thus, a winner of a prize for the best novel of the year may feel that he has been given a reward for intense effort; a reward is offered for the return of a lost article{he scorned to take a reward for doing what in justice he ought to do— Steele
}{it may come as a shock to the cynical that the mere embrace of wickedness is no guarantee of financial reward—Sat. Review
}Meed and guerdon are close synonyms of reward, often employed without distinction, but the former tends to suggest a reward recognizing merit and proportioned to it, and the latter a prize or honor conferred as a reward{he must not float upon his watery bier unwept, and welter to the parching wind, without the meed of some melodious tear— Milton
}{finds his guerdon in the consciousness of work done perfectly— Beerbohm
}{verse, like the laurel, its immortal meed, should be the guerdon of a noble deed— Cowpery Bount
}and bonus are applicable chiefly to a sum of money or its equivalent given as a premium or reward.Bounty is usually applied to a premium promised by a government or governmental agency as an inducement to some act (as enlistment in the army or navy, emigration to a distant colony, or destruction of noxious animals or pests) or as a subsidy to industry{the State pays a bounty for every wildcat killed
}{generous bounties for enlistment were offered by federal, state, and local authorities— T. A. Bailey
}Bonus, in contrast, is usually applied to something given over and above what is regularly received or due, either as a reward or encouragement or as a distribution of surplus{a soldier's bonus
}{the subsidies became only a bonus for inefficiency— T. W. Arnold
}{bonus . . .[/i] includes extra payments for night work, hazardous work, regular attendance, and overtime, as well as any annual or regular allotment such as a Christmas bonus—Glossary of Currently-Used Wage Terms
}{the reader is given a bonus of material not ordinarily found in meteorology texts— Science
}
New Dictionary of Synonyms. 2014.
