pros and cons

noun

the favorable and the unfavorable factors or reasons; advantages and disadvantages.

Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2012.
Cite This Source

Collins

World English Dictionary

pros and cons

—*pl n*
	the various arguments in favour of and against a motion, course of action, etc

[C16: from Latin prō for + con, from contrā against]

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 10th Edition
2009 © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins
Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009
Cite This Source

American Heritage

Idioms & Phrases

pros and cons

Arguments or considerations for and against something, as in We'd best weigh all the pros and cons before we decide to add a new wing to the library. This idiom is taken from the Latin pro for "for" and con for "against." [Late 1500s]

The American Heritage® Dictionary of Idioms by Christine Ammer.
Copyright © 1997. Published by Houghton Mifflin.
Cite This Source

Word Dynamo By Dictionary.com

Searching for pros and cons?
How many words do you actually know?

FIND OUT

Matching Quote

"Quite generally, the familiar, just because it is familiar, is not cognitively understood. The commonest way in which we deceive either ourselves or others about understanding is by assuming something as familiar, and accepting it on that account; with all its pros and cons, such knowing never gets anywhere, and it knows not why.... The analysis of an idea, as it used to be carried out, was, in fact, nothing else than ridding it of the form in which it had become familiar."

-Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel