lucrative

Etymology

Borrowed from French lucratif, from Latin lucrativus (“profitable”), from lucratus, past participle of lucror (“I gain”), from lucrum (“gain”), ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *leh₂w- (“profit, gain”). Compare Spanish lucrar.

adj

1. Producing a surplus; profitable.
   Since the mid-1980s, when Indonesia first began to clear its bountiful forests on an industrial scale in favour of lucrative palm-oil plantations, “haze” has become an almost annual occurrence in South-East Asia. The cheapest way to clear logged woodland is to burn it, producing an acrid cloud of foul white smoke that, carried by the wind, can cover hundreds, or even thousands, of square miles. 2013-06-29, “Unspontaneous combustion”, in The Economist, volume 407, number 8842, page 29
2. (military) Of a target: worth attacking; whose destruction is militarily useful.
   Command and Control centers and headquarters are strategically important and lucrative targets. 2001, Eric R. Taylor, Lethal Mists, page 196
   Its troops can be widely dispersed as light infantry, using light anti-ship, anti-air and anti-land missiles and weapons to defenda given area or facility without presenting lucrative targets for air, missile, and artillery fire. 1999, Anthony H. Cordesman, Iran's Military Forces in Transition, page 208